Going from FBA to wholesale changes four things in how the business runs: inventory splits into two pools with different packaging, orders arrive as purchase orders instead of a settlement report, money comes in on net terms weeks after you ship, and freight becomes something you arrange rather than something Amazon does. None of it is complicated. All of it is different from what FBA trained you to do, and the first six months go better when you plan for the differences instead of meeting them one at a time.
This article is the operational side. Pricing, product selection and finding buyers each have their own article; here the subject is what happens after a buyer says yes.
Two inventory pools instead of one
On FBA you have one pool. Units go to Amazon, Amazon holds them, and you watch days of supply. Wholesale needs a second pool that you control, in retail case packs, at a 3PL or your own space.
The reason is practical. A store orders a case of six with a UPC on the outside; a distributor orders forty cases on a pallet. FBA units are individually prepped, often poly-bagged, labeled with an FNSKU and stored loose. You cannot fulfil a case-pack purchase order from them without removal orders, repacking and delay, and by then the buyer has moved on.
So the production run splits. Say a product sells 800 units a month on Amazon and you expect wholesale to reach 250 a month in the first year. The next order is sized for both, with the supplier packing part of it as FBA-ready units and part as retail cases. The cases ship to your 3PL. The FBA units ship to Amazon as before.
Managing the wholesale pool is simpler than FBA in one way and harder in another. Simpler because there are no storage limits, no long-term storage fees, no restock caps. Harder because you are the one deciding safety stock, and the cost of running out is different: an FBA stockout costs rank for a few weeks, a wholesale stockout can cost the account.
A working rule: keep at least one reorder cycle of your largest account in case-pack stock at all times, and never pull from it to feed FBA.
Purchase orders replace the settlement report
An Amazon order is a line in a report. A wholesale order is a document with a number, and everything that follows refers to it.
A purchase order from a buyer lists the items by your SKU or UPC, the quantity in cases or units, the price agreed, the ship-to address, the requested ship date, and the terms. Your job is to confirm it, fulfil it exactly, and invoice it against the same PO number with the same line items in the same order.
That exactness matters more than sellers expect. A chain's receiving system rejects a shipment whose packing slip does not match the PO. A distributor's accounts payable holds an invoice whose line items do not match. A shorted line without notice becomes a chargeback. The habit to build from the first order: PO in, order confirmation out the same day, ship on the date confirmed, packing slip and invoice that mirror the PO, tracking sent without being asked.
You do not need software for the first accounts. A folder per account, a spreadsheet of open POs, and a numbered invoice template are enough for a dozen accounts. Once a distributor is reordering monthly and a chain is sending EDI, it is time for a system, and the accounts will tell you what they need.
Net terms and the cash gap
FBA pays you every two weeks. Wholesale pays on terms, and the gap between shipping and getting paid is the single biggest adjustment for a seller used to Amazon's rhythm.
Work through a made-up example. A distributor places an opening order for 600 units of a product you sell to them at 11.00. The order is 6,600 dollars. Your landed cost is 4.60 per unit, so the inventory in the order cost you 2,760 dollars, paid to your supplier two months before it arrived. You ship on day one and invoice net 30. If they pay on time, the money lands on day thirty; larger distributors and chains often run net 45 or net 60 in practice.
So between paying the supplier and being paid by the distributor, that inventory is unfunded for three to four months. If in the same window you also need to fund an FBA restock, which is where your regular cash comes from, the two can collide. The brands that stumble are the ones that took a big first wholesale order and then could not pay for the next FBA production run.
Three ways to manage it. Ask for prepayment or a card on a first order from an unknown account; most independents and many distributors agree. Size the first distributor order to what you can fund comfortably rather than what they would take. And build receivables into the cash forecast the same way you build FBA settlements into it now: a row per open invoice with its expected date.
Set a credit policy from the first account. Terms offered after a first paid order, a credit limit per account, and a follow-up on day thirty-one. Chasing late invoices politely is a normal part of wholesale; it is not rude and buyers expect it.
Freight is now your job
Amazon told you where to send inventory and handled everything after the inbound shipment. Wholesale puts outbound freight on you, and it has three sizes.
Small parcel for independents ordering a case or two. Ship via your usual carrier from the 3PL, charge shipping or build it into a free-shipping threshold, and pack cases so they arrive as cases, not as loose units in a box.
LTL, less-than-truckload, for distributor orders of a pallet or a few pallets. The 3PL or a freight broker quotes it. The buyer's PO will say whether freight is prepaid by you or collect on their account, and whether they need a delivery appointment. A distributor warehouse that requires appointments will refuse a truck that shows up without one.
Chain routing guides for larger retailers, which specify carrier, labeling, pallet configuration and delivery windows in detail, with chargebacks for every deviation. Read the routing guide before accepting the PO; the requirements sometimes change the economics of the order.
Terms on the line sheet should state who pays freight and from where. FOB your warehouse, meaning the buyer pays freight, is common for distributors; free shipping over a minimum is common for independents.
A first-order timeline
Putting it together as a made-up timeline for a brand landing its first distributor, so the sequence is visible.
Week 0: the distributor confirms after a sample and sends a PO for 40 cases of 12, 480 units, at 11.00, net 30, FOB your warehouse, delivery appointment required.
Week 0, same day: you confirm the PO with a ship date in week 2, because the case packs are at the 3PL and you need to schedule a pickup.
Week 1: the 3PL builds the pallet to the spec on the line sheet, labels each case, and the freight broker quotes the LTL. You book the delivery appointment through the distributor's receiving contact.
Week 2: the pallet ships. You email tracking, the packing slip and the invoice, all referencing the PO number.
Week 3: delivery confirmed. You check in with the buyer to make sure receiving matched the PO.
Week 6: invoice due. If unpaid on day 31, a polite reminder.
Week 8 to 10: the first reorder, if the product is moving through their accounts. This is the point the whole exercise was aimed at, and it is where being in stock in case packs pays off.
That first reorder is the signal that the channel works. Once it comes, the Amazon seller wholesale strategy article covers how to scale the account mix from there.
Keeping Amazon healthy during the transition
Two things in Seller Central need attention while this is happening.
Do not let FBA go out of stock to fund wholesale. The production plan above, sized for both pools, is the fix; the temptation to send everything to a big distributor order and restock Amazon later costs more in lost rank than the order earns.
Hold the retail price. A store that just took your product at 15.00 wholesale to sell at 29.99 will notice a lightning deal at 22.99. Promotions become a channel decision once product is on shelves, and the resale policy in your terms, enforced through Brand Registry, keeps wholesale stock from reappearing on your own listing. The interplay is laid out in Amazon private label vs wholesale.
What the operation looks like at the end of year one
A brand that has made the transition usually looks like this twelve months in: FBA running as before, a case-pack pool at a 3PL with a safety stock rule, a dozen or two accounts with a simple PO and invoice routine, receivables in the cash forecast, a freight broker on call, and a retail price that holds. Wholesale is a smaller share of revenue than Amazon and a much larger share of the brand's stability.
Getting there starts with the buyers, and the step-by-step path from listing to first store order is in how to sell Amazon products in retail stores. If you want to know which stores and distributors are realistic for a specific ASIN before you set any of this up, paste the listing into WholesalePilot and the preview shows who would stock it.