Glossary
Marketplace fulfilment (FBA / FBF)
Also called: FBA, FBF, fulfilled by marketplace
Definition
A model where the marketplace stores your stock in its own warehouses and fulfils orders for you, in exchange for storage and fulfilment fees.
Marketplace fulfilment usually improves delivery speed and listing visibility, at the cost of holding stock in a pool you cannot ship to other channels from.
That split is the operational catch: units sitting in a marketplace's warehouse are unavailable to your own storefront and to other marketplaces, so availability has to be tracked per location rather than as one total.
Related terms
- 3PL (Third-Party Logistics)An external provider that stores your stock and fulfils your orders — receiving, storing, picking, packing and shipping on your behalf.
- Inventory ledgerA record of every stock movement — sale, return, adjustment, transfer, receipt — from which the current quantity is derived rather than stored.