Ecommerce

Amazon Vendor Central: The Complete Guide

Everything about Amazon Vendor Central in one guide: how invitations actually work, requirements, onboarding, platform features, the real cost stack (co-op, chargebacks, wholesale discount), and how to negotiate your contract.

Carlos Martínez Barriga Carlos Martínez Barriga 19 min read
Wide warehouse aisle stocked with branded product boxes — Amazon Vendor Central supply chain for consumer goods brands
Amazon Vendor Central: invitation paths, onboarding, platform features, real costs, and negotiation strategy for brands.

TL;DR — Key takeaways

  • Amazon Vendor Central is a first-party (1P) wholesale program: Amazon buys your inventory at wholesale, sets the retail price, and sells it under the “Sold by Amazon” label. You become a supplier, not a merchant.
  • It’s invitation-only. There’s no public application form. Invitations come from an Amazon category manager, from sponsorship by an established brand already in Vendor, or — least reliably — from Amazon’s automated scouting of Seller Central performance data.
  • Real requirements before anyone considers you: a verified trademark, an active ASIN with sales history, a bank account in an eligible country, and — informally — somewhere between $300K and $1M+ in trailing annual sales depending on category.
  • The economics are the part most brands underestimate. Wholesale pricing sits 40–60% below retail, co-op contributions run 5–15% of gross revenue, and chargebacks without automated EDI compliance add another 2–8%. Effective net margin often lands 20–30 points below what the headline wholesale price suggests.
  • Amazon has been pruning its vendor roster since 2019 — the profile Amazon wants has shifted toward larger, higher-volume, logistics-capable suppliers. Getting in is harder than it was in 2018, and staying in requires performance.
Table of contents

You get the email. Amazon wants to buy from you directly. The subject line alone feels like an arrival — like your brand has finally been acknowledged by the biggest retailer on earth. Most commercial directors we talk to describe that first invitation with genuine excitement.

What happens next is where it gets complicated. This guide covers the full arc: what Vendor Central actually is, the real paths to an invitation, what Amazon checks before saying yes, the requirements you need in place, what onboarding looks like week by week, the platform’s core features, the real cost stack behind the wholesale headline number, how to negotiate your contract before you sign it, and whether — for your specific business — getting in is even the right move.

What Is Amazon Vendor Central?

Amazon Vendor Central is an invitation-only platform for wholesalers, brands, and manufacturers who supply products directly to Amazon. Acting as the supplier, vendors sell products in bulk to Amazon, which becomes the retailer of record: Amazon sets the price, manages the listing, handles logistics, and owns the customer relationship. This is the first-party (1P) model, and it’s structurally different from Seller Central (3P), where you list and sell directly to consumers and keep control of price, content, and fulfillment.

Once invited, vendors manage the relationship through the Vendor Central dashboard. Amazon places purchase orders (POs) specifying quantities, delivery windows, and destination warehouses. You fulfill by shipping inventory to Amazon’s fulfillment network. From there, Amazon handles storage, the sale, customer service, and returns. In exchange, your products carry the “Ships from and sold by Amazon” label — which in some categories measurably improves buyer trust and conversion — and you gain access to vendor-exclusive tools: A+ Content, Amazon Vine, Demand-Side Platform (DSP) advertising inventory, and deeper Brand Analytics.

Vendor Central vs. Seller Central: The Real Differences

DimensionVendor Central (1P)Seller Central (3P)
Who sets retail priceAmazonYou
Inventory ownership post-POAmazonYou
FulfillmentAmazon (mandatory)FBA or FBM
Payment termsNet 30–90 daysRoughly every 14 days
Base cost structure40–60% wholesale discount off retail8–15% referral fee on sale price
Chargeback exposureSignificant without automationMinimal — you control shipments
Ad platform accessAmazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) + full DSPSponsored Ads + limited DSP
Brand and pricing controlLow — Amazon manages the listingHigh — you manage content and price
Customer relationshipAmazon owns itDirect
Access requirementInvitation onlyOpen to anyone

Neither model is universally “better.” Vendor Central trades pricing control and margin for reduced operational load, Prime-badge trust signals, and vendor-exclusive advertising and content tools. Seller Central trades operational responsibility for control. The rest of this guide assumes you’re seriously evaluating Vendor Central and want the unfiltered version of what that involves.

How to Get a Vendor Central Invitation

Amazon doesn’t run a waitlist, a form, or an “apply” button. Filling out contact forms, emailing Seller Support, or waiting passively rarely produces results — Vendor Central is, by design, a gated wholesale channel meant to keep out dropshippers, unverified intermediaries, and phantom brands. Access comes through one of four real paths.

Path 1 — Organic invitation from Amazon. Amazon’s retail vendor recruiting team monitors Seller Central performance data continuously. When your sales velocity, category rank, and account health metrics cross internal thresholds, a category manager may reach out directly, usually via the email on file for your Seller Central account. This path requires no proactive action from you — it’s also the slowest and least certain, and brands with strong metrics sometimes wait twelve to eighteen months after becoming “invitation-eligible” by profile.

Path 2 — Direct outreach to your Amazon category manager. Every product category has an associated retail team. If you have meaningful Seller Central volume, you likely already have some touchpoint with category management through account health or Brand Registry support. A structured, direct pitch — current sales data, brand-recognition signals (branded search volume), operational capacity (warehouse, EDI readiness, finance runway), and a wholesale price sheet — converts at meaningfully higher rates than a casual inquiry. This is consistently the fastest path for brands that already meet the volume bar.

Path 3 — Sponsorship from an established brand. A brand or distributor already selling in Vendor can sponsor you, vouching for your compliance, document validity, and operational seriousness. Amazon trusts a human recommendation more than automated criteria alone, which is why this path works even for brands below the usual volume threshold. Reach out to a complementary — not competing — brand already in Vendor and pitch a category adjacency. Sponsorship changes the conversation from “who is this brand?” to “here’s who vouches for them.”

Path 4 — Trade shows, Launchpad, and strategic programs. Amazon’s vendor recruiting team attends major trade shows — CES, Natural Products Expo, Toy Fair, NürnbergMesse in Europe, SIAL for food and beverage, Medica for health products — specifically to scout emerging brands. Programs like Amazon Launchpad, Small Business, and select accelerator cohorts also function as informal pipelines into Vendor Central by putting your brand in front of merchandising teams with Vendor authority.

Epinium data

In 5+ years supporting brands on Amazon, accounts with structured content governance (NerveOps™) outperform unmanaged accounts by 2.3x on indexed keywords — one of the sales-velocity signals category managers actually look at before extending an invitation.

What Amazon’s Buyers Are Actually Checking

There’s no published scorecard, but across the vendor onboarding work we support, evaluation consistently sorts into four buckets:

Sales trajectory matters more than absolute volume. A brand growing 45% year-over-year with $400K in Amazon sales is typically more interesting to a category manager than a flat brand at $1.2M — Amazon wants to bet on momentum, not legacy position.

Brand control is about MAP discipline and distribution exclusivity. The fewer third-party sellers moving your product on the marketplace, the more attractive you are as a direct wholesale partner.

Supply chain reliability is assessed through order defect rates, fulfillment performance, and inventory availability trends. Amazon is a risk-averse buyer that wants proof you can operate without massive returns or price manipulation.

Category fit is the one variable you can’t control. Amazon’s vendor recruitment cycles track its own internal expansion goals — in 2024 Amazon grew its first-party program meaningfully in health and personal care, outdoor equipment, and industrial supplies, while pulling back in parts of consumer electronics during the same period.

Non-Negotiable Requirements Before You Get In

Before you pursue any of the four paths, verify this checklist. Roughly 73% of rejected Vendor applications fail due to incomplete documentation or unverifiable sales history — details matter, and Amazon closes weak applications fast.

Registered trademark, verified. Amazon cross-checks your brand name against public trademark databases (USPTO, EUIPO, UKIPO, WIPO). If it doesn’t appear, your application closes immediately. As of Q1 2026, Amazon runs automated WIPO/USPTO verification — legitimate trademarks get fast feedback, and applications with unregistered or conflicting marks now close within 48 hours instead of weeks.

Active ASIN with 3+ months of sales history. If you’re coming from Seller Central, you need at least 90 days of verified sales with real ratings and reviews. There’s no shortcut for a first ASIN — Amazon needs proof you can operate without triggering complaints or returns at scale.

Bank account in an eligible country, registered under your company name. It must match the entity on your trademark and tax registration. Redirecting payments to a third party, or banking in a high-risk jurisdiction, is an automatic rejection.

A legal business entity. Amazon doesn’t mandate a specific structure, but an LLC or corporation is strongly recommended — it separates personal and business liability and adds credibility during onboarding. Sole proprietorships are accepted in some regions but are less common at this stage.

EAN/UPC barcodes on every SKU and product data readiness: structured titles, descriptions, images, and attributes that meet Amazon’s catalog format before you’re invited to submit anything.

Predictable volume, informally. Category thresholds vary widely — from roughly $300K–$500K trailing annual sales in some categories to $1M+ in others — but growth rate consistently matters as much as absolute volume.

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The Vendor Roster Reality Most Guides Don’t Mention

Since 2019, Amazon has been systematically reducing its vendor roster. Internal programs — widely reported under the name “Project Solaris” — moved thousands of smaller vendors back to Seller Central or terminated their agreements outright. The reason is operational economics: managing first-party supply chains for thousands of small vendors costs Amazon more than operating at scale with fewer, larger supplier relationships.

The practical implication: the account is harder to get into than it was in 2018, and the profile Amazon wants has shifted toward established brands with significant, growing volume. Brands with $200K–$500K in annual Amazon sales that received invitations in 2016–2018 are no longer the target profile — the bar has moved up, and in 2025 tightened further to roughly $200K+ monthly or proven retail distribution presence for brands without a sponsor.

It also cuts both ways after you’re in. If your volume doesn’t grow to meet Amazon’s operational cost expectations, you can be offboarded — often with less notice than you’d want. Starting in Q4 2024, a vendor-consolidation wave moved through multiple categories: Amazon proactively migrated low-volume vendor accounts (typically under $2M in annual first-party sales in non-strategic categories) back to Seller Central, with 60–90 day transition windows. Many brands under $5–10M annually in non-strategic categories saw the same signal through 2025.

Onboarding: From Invitation to First Purchase Order

Once you accept an invitation, follow the registration link in the invitation email and complete your profile: company information, tax details (VAT ID, EIN, or the local equivalent), banking information, and product catalog data (titles, descriptions, images, attributes, GTINs). Amazon requires a specific data format, so following their template precisely prevents processing delays.

Vendor Central operates through regional portals — the US (vendorcentral.amazon.com), and localized portals for markets like France, Germany, the UK, Italy, and Spain. Select the portal matching your operational base; there’s no unified global vendor account, though the European Fulfillment Network (EFN) and North American Fulfillment Network (NAFN) can extend your product’s reach across neighboring marketplaces once you have a Vendor account in at least one of them.

StageTypical DurationKey Actions
Invitation receivedDay 0Review terms carefully; don’t sign under time pressure
Account setup1–2 weeksComplete onboarding, submit tax forms, configure payment info
Catalog import2–4 weeksUpload catalog, configure EDI/API integration, set pricing
First purchase orders4–8 weeks post-setupConfirm fill rates, ship on time, avoid early chargebacks
Fully operational3–4 months totalAll SKUs live, performance metrics established, A+ Content active

Brands that underestimate EDI setup time are typically the ones who experience their first wave of chargebacks within 30 days of going live. Don’t expect instant volume once you’re live, either — Amazon tests your performance before ramping demand, and the transition from approval to steady sales typically takes 60–90 days.

Inside Vendor Central: Core Features

Order and purchase order management. Amazon sends POs — typically weekly, often on Mondays, more frequently during demand peaks. Confirming and fulfilling them on time is the single biggest lever against chargebacks. Creating a listing doesn’t guarantee an immediate order: Amazon’s automated buying system relies on sales history and current demand, so early POs are often smaller than sellers expect until demand builds.

Payment processing. Amazon pays on Net 30, 60, or 90-day terms depending on your contract, trackable through the Payment Dashboard. Longer terms create real cash-flow pressure — enough that some vendors use factoring or short-term credit to replenish inventory while waiting on payment.

Marketing and content tools. A+ Content (Enhanced Brand Content) lets you build richer product pages with comparison charts and lifestyle imagery. Amazon Vine seeds early reviews from trusted reviewers. Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands work the same for vendors and sellers; Product Display Ads are vendor-exclusive, and vendors get access to the fuller Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and DSP inventory that Seller Central accounts don’t.

Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA). Vendor-exclusive reporting on sales performance, customer demographics and behavior, and category-level market trends — used to inform inventory, pricing, and marketing decisions.

Direct Fulfillment. An alternative to standard bulk shipping: instead of stocking Amazon’s warehouses ahead of demand, you ship directly to the end customer after Amazon places the order, and get paid per shipment. Amazon vets your shipping capability (typically a 3–5 day standard) before enrolling you, and participation requirements have expanded since 2025 in categories with irregular demand — it’s no longer purely optional in some of them.

Amazon Supplier Connect. A resource hub activated during and after onboarding: document templates, packaging and labeling instructions, and a direct line to Amazon’s retail and compliance teams. Its role is consistently underestimated — regular use meaningfully reduces chargebacks and setup delays, especially in the first 90 days.

The Real Economics: What Vendor Central Actually Costs

There’s no subscription fee to become an Amazon vendor. Instead, the cost shows up as a stack of deductions built into how Amazon buys from you — and it’s the part most brands dramatically underestimate at the start.

Cost CategoryTypical RangeNotes
Wholesale discount off retail40–60%The baseline — Amazon buys low, sells at its own set retail price
Co-op / marketing contributions5–15% of gross revenueCovers MDF, promotional placement, category advertising programs — negotiated at signing
Chargebacks (unautomated EDI)2–8% of gross vendor revenueLabeling, ASN timing, carton-quantity, and delivery non-compliance
Damage / defective allowance1–3%Deducted without requiring physical return of the defective unit, unless capped in negotiation
Freight allowance2–5%Set in your logistics agreement
Payment termsNet 30–90 daysCash-flow burden scales with term length and PO frequency

Stack these together and effective net margin often lands 20–30 percentage points below what the headline wholesale price implies. Epinium data: across 240+ vendor accounts we’ve supported between 2020 and 2025, the average effective margin reduction in year one was 17.4 percentage points — driven by co-op deductions (avg. 9.2% of net sales), chargeback penalties (avg. 3.1%), and freight allowances (avg. 5.1%). Brands that negotiated contract terms upfront cut that figure to an average of 11.6 percentage points.

Individual chargeback events range from $50 to over $500 depending on violation type — a label printed outside spec is a chargeback event, and a carton arriving with 11 units when the PO specified 12 is a chargeback event. High-volume vendors with logistics gaps have reported quarterly chargeback totals exceeding $20,000.

The Negotiation Playbook Most Brands Skip

The invitation arrives, the brand feels validated, and the standard agreement gets signed with minimal pushback. That’s the default — and it means accepting terms written by Amazon’s legal team, optimized for Amazon’s commercial interests. Four contract elements are genuinely negotiable in round one and become very difficult to revisit afterward:

Cost price. Amazon proposes a wholesale cost that supports its target retail margin — treat it as a starting position, not a final offer. Model your full P&L at different cost points, with unit-level margin visibility across every SKU in scope, before you counter.

Payment terms. Standard first contracts often run Net 60. Net 30 is achievable for brands with real category leverage. Net 90 shows up in some first agreements for smaller brands and creates a cash-flow burden that compounds quickly against weekly POs.

Damage and defective allowances. Standard contracts let Amazon deduct 2–3% of gross invoiced amount for “damage and defective” product without requiring the physical unit back. Push to cap this or tie it to a confirmed defect rate verified against actual return data.

Co-op fees. The largest line item most brands never see coming, typically 5–12% of net sales. Brands that accept the initial co-op proposal without running a full P&L model against their Seller Central baseline regularly find year-one Vendor Central profitability is worse than where they started.

The first annual renewal is the second, and often last, meaningful leverage point — after that, the structural path to better terms gets steeper every year.

EDI, Chargebacks, and Compliance Automation

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the document layer governing every transaction with Amazon: PO receipt, PO confirmation, Advance Shipping Notices (ASNs), and invoice submission. Every document type has strict field-level formatting, timing windows, and matching rules against the originating PO — a single mismatch between your ASN and the actual shipment is enough to trigger an automatic chargeback with no human review.

Amazon expects PO confirmation within 24 hours of receipt, ASNs before the shipment arrives, and invoice line items matching the PO exactly on unit cost, SKU, and quantity. Manual data entry doesn’t scale to that frequency without an error rate — it’s a structural inevitability, not a competence problem. New ASN v2 labeling rules went into effect August 1, 2025, and non-compliance flows straight into chargeback counters. Amazon’s automated PO accuracy scoring system, introduced in early 2025, now gives every vendor a monthly compliance score; scores below 95% trigger automatic deduction review within 30 days, down from the old 60–90 day manual escalation cycle.

Vendor Central doesn’t currently expose EDI-equivalent access through a single unified consumer API in the way Seller Central’s Selling Partner API does for some functions — vendors work primarily through EDI and the Vendor Central web interface for bulk CSV import/export — but the operational principle holds regardless of the wire format: every compliance failure is a data problem before it’s an operational problem. At Epinium, our NerveOps™ layer monitors EDI document state in real time, flags compliance anomalies before transmission, and auto-generates compliant ASNs from warehouse management data. Across the accounts we manage, average chargeback rate before structured EDI workflows sits at 3.4% of gross vendor revenue; after 90 days on an automated compliance system, that drops to 0.7%.

Running Vendor Central and Seller Central Together

A large share of established 1P vendors now run Seller Central accounts in parallel — not as a fallback, but as deliberate portfolio strategy. Vendor Central gives you the “Sold by Amazon” signal, Amazon Vine access, and certain A+ Content formats unavailable in SC. Seller Central gives you price control, faster replenishment cycles, and better customer data visibility. The common structure: use VC for core catalog SKUs where brand-trust signals matter most, and SC for new launches, limited editions, and high-margin products you have no interest in wholesaling at a 50% discount. Amazon permits running both for the same brand, but not identical products through both channels simultaneously without transparent disclosure — hidden dual-selling on the same ASIN triggers immediate termination risk.

The operational complexity is real: two portals, two performance-metric sets, two compliance regimes. Optimizing one channel at the expense of the other is a common mistake that only surfaces once you can see the full margin picture across both.

Is Vendor Central Right for Your Brand?

Brands that tend to do better with Vendor Central: established brands with strong consumer pull, high volume that justifies Amazon’s operational overhead, and categories where “sold by Amazon” trust signals materially move conversion — consumer packaged goods, health and beauty, and select electronics categories see the largest advantages. If your customers already search for you by name, the badge itself adds less lift, and the co-op cost to maintain it may not be worth it.

Brands that often regret the switch: direct-to-consumer brands that built margin on 3P fees, brands running complex or dynamic pricing strategies, brands with thin margins (under 25% gross) or revenue under $5M, and brands in categories where Prime-eligible FBA already delivers fulfillment parity on the 3P side. Many brands that initially chased Vendor Central status find a well-optimized Seller Central operation with FBA delivers comparable consumer visibility, better margin control, and meaningfully more flexibility — Amazon catalog management tools that sharpen listing quality, pricing, and sponsored ads can close much of the conversion gap between 3P and 1P listings.

If Amazon declines your outreach or doesn’t respond, there are two productive paths: build the metrics that matter (grow velocity, maintain account health, and re-approach in six to twelve months with meaningfully different numbers), or conclude that VC isn’t the right model for your business right now. It’s worth pursuing if the economics work for your profile. It’s worth declining even after you receive the invitation if they don’t.

What Changed in Amazon Vendor Central: 2025–2026

Vendor terminations for sub-$5–10M brands continued. Amazon kept pushing vendor accounts generating under $5–10M annually toward Seller Central through 2025, removing the invitation safety net many mid-tier brands had relied on.

Trademark verification became automated and near-instant. Q1 2026 saw Amazon deploy automated WIPO + USPTO checks; legitimate applications get feedback in 2–4 weeks instead of the previous 6–12, and unregistered or conflicting trademarks close within 48 hours.

ASN v2 labeling became mandatory (August 1, 2025). Non-compliance flows directly into chargeback counters, raising the bar on EDI and labeling automation for any newly onboarded brand.

Chargeback and audit automation tightened. The new PO accuracy scoring system (early 2025) replaced slower manual escalation with automatic 30-day deduction review cycles for scores under 95%.

Strategic Vendor Services (SVS) was restructured (Q4 2025). Amazon removed dedicated account managers from accounts below roughly $5M in annual vendor net sales, replacing them with pooled support and automated tooling — meaningfully less human touchpoint at exactly the moments (renewals, onboarding) where it used to matter most.

A “Vendor Plus” tier emerged (late 2025) for existing brands wanting expanded benefits — dedicated account management, co-op funding, early program access — signaling deeper investment in strategic vendors even as the standard tier gets less support.

Direct Fulfillment participation expanded into more categories with irregular demand, carrying its own EDI document types and packaging rules that catch unprepared vendors off guard.

Hybrid 1P/3P became the default structure, not the exception, for brands with mature Amazon operations — driven partly by the roster pruning and partly by brands actively hedging against being offboarded from Vendor with no fallback channel.

FAQ: Amazon Vendor Central

Can I apply for Amazon Vendor Central directly?

No. There’s no public application portal and no open waitlist. The closest thing to “applying” is systematically building the signals Amazon’s category buyers look for — sales velocity, brand control, logistics readiness — and making yourself visible through trade events, a sponsor, or direct outreach to a category manager. Amazon occasionally runs category-specific solicitation processes that function as de facto open windows; monitoring your account health inbox is worth doing if you’re actively pursuing this.

How long does it take to get invited after reaching out?

If your profile matches current criteria, direct outreach to a responsive category manager can produce an invitation in four to eight weeks. Organic invitations vary far more widely — sometimes twelve to eighteen months after a brand becomes “eligible” by profile. There’s no Amazon SLA on timing either way.

How long does the application-to-approval process take once invited?

If your documentation is complete and your brand is verifiably legitimate, 2–4 weeks. Verification delays or missing documents push that to 6–8 weeks or longer, and a rejected-and-resubmitted application is treated as new, adding another 8–12 weeks. Start the process early — don’t commit inventory or marketing spend against a Vendor assumption that hasn’t cleared yet.

What happens after Amazon approves my application?

You get access to the Vendor Dashboard. Within 30 days you need to set up your catalog with ASINs, validate wholesale pricing against Amazon’s margin expectations, and ship your first inventory to a fulfillment center. The transition from approval to steady sales typically takes 60–90 days — Amazon tests performance before ramping demand.

Can I run Seller Central and Vendor Central at the same time?

Yes, and it’s increasingly the default structure for mature Amazon operations. What Amazon doesn’t allow is selling identical products through both channels on the same ASIN without transparent disclosure — hidden dual-selling risks immediate termination. The common approach is segmenting by SKU: high-volume, thinner-margin products go 1P; premium or price-sensitive products stay 3P.

What annual revenue do I need before Amazon takes interest?

There’s no published minimum. In practice, category teams start paying attention around $300K–$500K in trailing 12-month Amazon revenue for most categories, with some niches lower and consumer-scale categories closer to $1M+. Growth rate matters as much as absolute volume — a brand growing 40%+ year-over-year tends to attract attention earlier than a larger but flat one.

Can I renegotiate my wholesale price after I’m already in?

Rarely, and rarely successfully outside your first annual renewal. Amazon sets your entry cost based on competitive landscape and its own margin targets; renegotiating requires demonstrating changed market conditions or real competitive pressure, not simply wanting better margins. Established vendors with strong track records have more leverage than new ones.

What are the main disadvantages versus Seller Central?

Three catch brands off guard most often: complete loss of retail pricing control (Amazon can discount below your MSRP to compete with 3P listings); Net 60–90 payment terms that create a real cash-flow gap; and chargeback exposure for operational compliance failures that can materially reduce effective revenue from every PO.

Can Amazon force me off Vendor Central?

Yes. Amazon can terminate the relationship or migrate you back to Seller Central, particularly when sales fall below category viability thresholds or Amazon exits a category. The 2024–2025 consolidation wave made that risk concrete rather than hypothetical — it’s one of the strongest arguments for keeping a functioning Seller Central account as a landing pad.

What should I do if I get an invitation but I’m not ready?

Ask for a delay. Amazon’s recruiting teams are used to brands needing preparation time, and a 60–90 day delay request is typically granted without affecting the invitation. Use that window to audit EDI readiness, model your wholesale P&L at the proposed cost, review logistics capacity against typical PO volumes in your category, and align your team on the co-op negotiation before you sign anything. Entering underprepared costs more than entering late.

Do I need a US tax ID to sell through Vendor Central if I’m based in Europe?

Yes, for the US marketplace — Amazon Vendor Central requires a US tax ID (EIN) even for international brands, because the US Vendor relationship is managed from the US entity, alongside foreign bank account registration for overseas payment. Work with a tax consultant to set this up before applying; it’s part of the compliance checklist Amazon reviews.

Is Vendor Central being discontinued or reduced?

Amazon hasn’t announced plans to discontinue it. What changed since 2019 is the active pruning of the roster: smaller, lower-volume brands have been moved back to Seller Central to reduce Amazon’s operational overhead, while the program continues to exist and expand for strategic, high-volume brands. The signal for new applicants: Amazon is building a smaller, higher-volume vendor base, not a bigger one.

Do I need to hold my own inventory as a vendor?

Yes. Unlike Seller Central, Vendor Central doesn’t support FBA, dropshipping, or just-in-time logistics. Amazon places bulk orders and you’re responsible for shipping physical inventory to its fulfillment centers on strict schedules — missing delivery windows triggers chargebacks or suspended POs. If you’re currently using FBA as a 3P seller, moving to Vendor means giving up Amazon-managed inventory entirely for those SKUs.

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