Amazon to prioritize shipments of household staples and other high-demand products, partially suspending its Fulfillment by Amazon program through April 5
Amazon's ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’ (FBA) program, through which it provides warehousing and shipment services for products from third-party sellers …
TechCrunchDarrell Etherington
Context & Ripple Effects
Days into the pandemic surge, Amazon is triaging its own warehouses: inbound shipments are limited to household staples and other high-demand products, and the Fulfillment by Amazon program is partially suspended through April 5. The move extends geographically within a week — Amazon also stopped shipping non-essential third-party goods via FBA to consumers in Italy and France, where lockdowns hit earlier.
First-order effects
Third-party sellers who rely on FBA for warehousing and shipping lose access to it for non-essential inventory until at least April 5, forcing them to fulfill orders themselves or go dark.
Sellers pushed out of FBA compete for alternative fulfillment — their own warehouses, third-party logistics providers, or carriers — just as Amazon separately moved to suspend Amazon Shipping, its beta delivery service for Marketplace sellers, cutting off another channel in June.
The squeeze lands on top of existing carrier friction: Amazon had already blocked Marketplace sellers from using FedEx Ground for Prime shipments over delivery-performance disputes, so sellers' fallback options were constrained even before this suspension.
Third-order effects
If triage becomes the template for future demand shocks, Amazon's role shifts from neutral marketplace infrastructure to allocator of scarce logistics capacity — deciding which products and sellers get warehouse space, with no appeal process described in the coverage.
The episode exposes how much of the marketplace runs on Amazon-owned rails: when FBA closes, sellers have few equivalent substitutes, strengthening the case — among regulators and sellers alike — that fulfillment and retail sit too close together on one platform.
The trend: Crisis-driven capacity allocation is turning Amazon's fulfillment network from a seller utility into a rationed resource, with the company itself setting which goods flow.
We're opening 100K new roles, and raising wages, so we can continue getting essential items to customers during these stressful times. We welcome anyone who's been laid off or furloughed to consider joining us until their old jobs become available again. https://blog.aboutamazon.…
Sellers reportedly informed by @amazon it's suspending all shipments to its warehouses, except for medical supplies and household staples. https://twitter.com/...
Amazon: with more people ordering from home cause @coronavirus, we're adding 100,000 workers (as if it were Christmas), and temporarily boosting wages for people who risk getting sick to come in. Can Walmart's http://jet.com/, FedEx, goPuff match? https://blog.aboutamazon.com/ ..…
Big tech with their fortress balance sheets should use it in this crisis. It's a moral imperative. Props to Amazon: “Amazon ramps hiring, opening 100,000 new roles ... Company will invest over $350 million globally to increase pay by $2/hour in the U.S.” https://blog.aboutamazon.…
Amazon using the current crisis to go in for the death blow on retail. It's literally the perfect situation for them to capitalize on. https://twitter.com/...
Five warehouse workers in Europe have contracted the coronavirus, while in the U.S. Amazon is struggling to hire enough people to meet an order spike https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Sales of just one kind of 1,000 sheet toilet paper on Amazon increased a whopping 944% for the first two weeks of March due to Coronavirus. That wild surge in demand is pushing workers to the limit — and could be endangering their health. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... @ceodon…
The hiring comes as coronavirus spreads through Amazon facilities in Europe and confusion and fear hits its delivery network in the US: https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Amazon's dealing with at least 5 Covid-19 cases among warehouse workers in Europe. They've kept those buildings open so far. We looked at Amazon's emerging dilemma: Ecommerce is crucial right now. Can they keep the trucks rolling & protect their workers? https://www.bloomberg.com…
Amazon's delivery machine showing signs of coronavirus-fueled strain; covid-19 cases have shown up at Amazon warehouses in Spain and Italy; workers at one site in Northern Italy went on strike, saying the company isn't protecting them https://www.bloomberg.com/...
“Others note that managers continue to insist on holding ‘stand-up’ staff meetings before every shift at every facility, despite vocal concerns from workers that the practice of squeezing dozens of employees into a small area together for 10 or 15 minutes at a time is dangerous” …
1500 Amazon workers have now signed a petition demanding more protections from coronavirus at work https://www.facebook.com/... https://twitter.com/...