The Covert Amazon Program That Could Be Costing You Thousands
Amazon is reportedly auto-enrolling some select sellers in its new inbound shipping solution, the FBA Multiple Destinations Program.
In his recent Amazon-focused newsletter, AUKO eCommerce Founder and Amazon expert, Jon Derkits, reveals that the program goes back as far as 2021. Amazon allegedly “opted sellers in to the program, sending easily overlooked emails like the one below to only the Primary User of an account.”

Sellers unwittingly enrolled in the program may suddenly find themselves paying higher shipping fees that they otherwise could have avoided, had Amazon not resorted to yet another sleight of hand move.
For Derkits, FBA Multiple Destinations is “a program whereby, in exchange for a small break on fulfillment fees, Amazon is going to have you split your inbound FBA shipment into 3 smaller shipments.”
How is this different than Amazon’s standard practice of splitting shipment? The most notable (and costly) impact is to FTL (full truckload) shipment. Derkits noticed his FTL shipments were suddenly being split into multiple LTL (less than truckload) shipment, increasing shipping costs significantly.
For Amazon, processing smaller shipments may result in lower cross-docking labor and transit costs. But for many sellers, prepping and transferring inventory this way may result in elevated shipping costs, logistical challenges, and a multitude of inconveniences.
Note: Unenrolling from FBA Multiple Destinations program should not be confused with Amazon’s Inventory Placement Service (IPS).
For a substantial fee, IPS involves a 2-step process that allows you to initially send your shipment to just one fulfillment center instead of directly sending it to multiple locations from your warehouse. Once your inventory arrives at the initial receiving center, Amazon will then split it up into several boxes and distribute those boxes across different fulfillment centers as they see fit.
A New Costly Nightmare?
One seller on the Seller Central Forum wrote, “We are preparing products all day long, box them and at the end, we are creating one single shipment going to 1 pretty close destination, and it is simple and easy…
With this new feature, which is going to be implemented all over the board, we are going to have to split at last minute all the inventory in 3, with random quantities, and we are going to pay much more for shipping everyday to 3 destinations. The discount per item is simply ridiculous, at $.05 per item.
For us, it’s a $20 discount per day, for at least $100 increase in shipping costs. Why every single move of Amazon is making things more difficult and more expensive?”
While Amazon may tout a minor savings of just $0.05 cents per small standard unit and $0.09 for large standard, the cumulative expenses incurred by these shipment splits tend to far outweigh any perceived benefits for most sellers.
Derkits himself revealed in his email that staying opted into the program would have cost him $14,401 in additional yearly inbound freight transportation charges.
However, not all sellers miss out on the benefit of FBA Multiple Destinations. In the comments section of this YouTube video, one seller reportedly gained considerable savings through the program.
“If you’re sending volume in my opinion it’s worth it. I sent in 400 units 3 location, usually this would have been $60-$70 this time around I paid $27,”
Meanwhile, over at Reddit, one seller commented, “We use it, but all our stuff is small so we can ship 5k+ units on a pallet. The three warehouses are in the same region and average $100 per pallet. So at $0.05 Amazon is basically paying us to ship this way.”
That said, when it comes to whether or not the program will save you money long-term, it all boils down to the number of SKUs you have to ship and the distance between your location and Amazon’s designated receiving centers.
It depends on your workflow and circumstances but if it’s going to take you so much time and effort to manually prep and pack different SKUs for multiple shipments going to several fulfillment centers, opting out of FBA Multiple Destinations .
How to Opt Out
As easy as it is to find yourself inadvertently enrolled, unenrolling proves to be quite a challenge.
The program is difficult to find. In fact, if you attempt to search for it in the help center, it will not show up. The only success in locating it has been with a direct link to the program policy.
There is opt out feature within your Seller Central account. The only ways to opt out are by opening a case with Seller Central and then emailing [email protected].
“It took multiple Seller Support (SeSu) cases to get some ground truth, and then multiple emails to get un-enrolled,” Derkits shared. He advises against opening a live chat or phone case, instead opening a case via email. He then lays out the below instructions.
To sum up, FBA Multiple Destinations can be a profit killer for some sellers but a financial benefit to others. It all boils down to crunching the numbers for your business.
But if you are finding that you suddenly have to split FTL into LTL or that the additional prep and shipping costs of multi-destination shipping is high, opting out may be the best option. Bottom line, now that you know about this “secret” program, you have the ability to make that decision for yourself.
You can read more from Derkits on this edition of his recurring newsletter and can subscribe for future insights.
Related: Amazon Offers New Fulfillment Fee Discounts on Select ASINs
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