The cartons are packed, the container is booked, and then someone notices the FNSKU labels are on the wrong side of the poly bag. In the US, that used to be fixable at the fulfillment center for a fee. Since 1 January 2026, it mostly is not.

Amazon's FBA Prep Service help page states it plainly: from 1 January 2026, Amazon no longer offers prep and item labeling services for FBA shipments in the US store. The labeling page says the same and notes that shipments created before that date were the last ones handled under the old arrangement.

Read that as a logistics change, not an Amazon policy change. The work did not disappear. It moved upstream, to the factory, the consolidator, or whoever loads the container in Shenzhen or Ningbo.

What Amazon still checks

Amazon's own prep guide is direct about the downside. Product that arrives with inadequate or non-compliant packaging can be refused, returned or repackaged, and the seller pays for it. There is no negotiation stage. A rejected carton is a truck, a warehouse and a second shipment.

So the specs matter more now, because nobody downstream fixes them.

Item labels

Height 1 to 2 inches, width 2 to 3 inches. Black ink on non-reflective paper with adhesive backing. A 300 DPI laser printer gives the cleanest scan. The label needs the scannable barcode, the matching FNSKU, the product name and the condition, new or used.

Place it on a smooth, flat surface. Corners, edges and curves are where scanners fail. If the item does not need extra packaging, cover the original UPC, EAN or ISBN so the wrong code cannot be scanned by accident. If it does need extra packaging, put the label on the outside.

Damaged or photocopied labels are not accepted. That sounds obvious until you watch a factory run labels off a tired laser printer at the end of a shift.

Poly bags

Perforated packaging, powders and granules, plush, baby products, apparel and textiles, jewellery and small parts, and liquids all need bagging. The bag has to be sealed and transparent, the barcode outside must stay readable, and any bag with an opening 5 inches or larger needs a suffocation warning label.

The bag should fit the item. Amazon's guidance is that it should not extend more than 3 inches beyond the product, and product should not be forced into a bag that is too small.

Sharp, fragile, ceramic and glass items go the other way. They get bubble wrap, not a bag, and the label goes on the outside of the wrap.

The carton itself

Remove, cover or black out every existing barcode on the outside of the shipping carton. Opaque tape or a black marker both work. The point is that nothing on that box scans except the label Amazon expects.

This is the step most often skipped when a factory reuses cartons from a previous order. The old code is still there, still readable, and it points at the wrong shipment.

Why this lands on the forwarder

Consolidators already open cartons to check counts. Adding a label check costs minutes. Fixing a rejected container at the destination costs weeks, and the seller eats the storage and the reship.

The practical sequence: confirm the label artwork before production ends, print a sample and scan it, then check a finished carton under the same light the warehouse will use. Do this before the container is sealed, not after.

Timing has a second layer. Ocean carriers publish peak season surcharges with fixed effective dates, and under Maersk's published terms the price calculation date for non-spot bookings is tied to the scheduled departure of the first water leg, or for FMC-regulated trades to the last container gate-in date. Spot bookings are typically excluded. Miss the gate-in and the surcharge that applies may not be the one you quoted.

None of that is a reason to guess a number. Ask your forwarder for the current rate and the current surcharge status for your lane and sailing date.

Hang Sheng Consolidation (Shenzhen) handles ocean, air, rail, FBA and DDP/DDU door delivery, including label and carton checks before consolidation. Reply within 24 hours. WhatsApp +8613927430130.

Sources

  1. Amazon Seller Central — FBA Prep Service (prep and item labeling discontinued from 1 January 2026, US store)
  2. Amazon Seller Central — FBA Label Service
  3. Amazon — FBA prep, packaging and labeling guide (7 July 2026)
  4. Maersk — peak season surcharge announcement, 29 October 2026 (mechanism and effective dates)

Sources

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