The benefits of unbranded packaging: Ship with Amazon Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF)

Managing a successful ecommerce business across multiple online sales channels can be challenging. As your presence across channels—like ecommerce marketplaces, social media stores, or brand websites—grows, so do the complexities of handling your company’s logistics, including warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, shipping, and returns.

Multichannel ecommerce businesses can boost their revenue by selling on numerous channels, but to do so they must be able to handle the difficulties of increased and unpredictable order volumes, while maintaining a positive shopping experience from checkout to delivery for all shoppers. The latter remains a key priority for customers. In fact, in a 2024 survey, consumers ranked delivery reliability as a higher priority than even delivery speed—they prefer a package to arrive when a company promises, whether that’s in two days or five days. Nevertheless, many businesses are up for the challenge, as our research shows that around 70% of Amazon sellers in the US sell on at least one non-Amazon channel. Some ecommerce companies look to outsource their logistics to third-party logistics (3PL) services to help them successfully pursue a multichannel selling strategy.

3PL services, like Amazon Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF), part of the fulfillment arm of Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS), Amazon’s complete end-to-end logistics solution, can provide operational expertise and a vast global network, enabling you to optimize the order fulfillment process and safeguard a smooth delivery experience across various sales channels.

MCF offers fulfillment services for orders placed on non-Amazon channels, giving your customers the Amazon fulfillment experience—with fast, reliable deliveries—no matter which channels they shop on. MCF even has specific features, like unbranded packaging, that ensure you can sell your products across sales channels easily while your customer experience remains top-notch.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of MCF’s unbranded packaging feature and explain how it works.

The benefits of unbranded packaging for MCF orders

When a business uses ASCS as its 3PL, and a customer places an order on a non-Amazon sales channel, the order is automatically fulfilled by MCF and shipped in unbranded packaging.¹ This means the packing slip, shipping labels, and packaging materials that MCF uses—including boxes, tape, jiffy mailers, and polybags—do not contain any Amazon branding.

MCF orders are automatically shipped in unbranded packaging at no additional fee.

Since MCF is part of the global ASCS network, the unbranded packaging feature is available in many of the 27 countries ASCS operates in—including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Japan, and Italy.

Utilizing unbranded packaging for your non-Amazon orders provides a number of benefits, including:

• A consistent brand experience: No matter what channel a customer places an order on, their experience will be the same. MCF delivers orders in as fast as two days and sends real-time tracking updates every step of the way. When a customer’s order arrives on their doorstep, it will be in a blank box. That way, you’ll avoid any confusion that may occur if packages arrive in Amazon-branded packaging.
• Compliance with ecommerce marketplace guidelines: Meeting customers where they shop most can help boost your business’s sales, but you’re required to abide by ecommerce marketplace requirements. Being automatically enrolled in unbranded packaging can help ensure you adhere to third-party marketplace guidelines.

¹_{Note that for US orders, MCF’s unbranded packaging feature does not include items that exceed 56 inches for the longest side or are heavier than 49.9 lb. For the UK, JP, and CA, MCF’s unbranded packaging feature does not include non-sortable inventory that exceeds 45.72 x 35.56 x 20.32 cm and/or 9 kg. For DE, IT, FR, and ES, MCF’s unbranded packaging does not include non-sortable inventory, apparel and footwear, or items that exceed 45.72 x 35.56 x 20.32 cm and/or 9 kg.}

How unbranded packaging works for MCF orders

There are three steps in the unbranded packaging process:

1. Inbound shipment creation: Prepare, label, and send your inventory to Amazon fulfillment centers using the standard inbound process you typically follow. MCF will automatically distribute your inventory across the ASCS fulfillment network—which includes more than 2,000 facilities—so that your products are ready to be picked, packed, and shipped out to customers.
2. Inventory visibility: You can check the amount of inventory available to be fulfilled with unbranded packaging in your Seller Central account.
3. Order processing: Once a customer places an order, MCF fulfills the order. Amazon MCF orders are prioritized to ship in unbranded packaging when inventory is available for unbranded packaging.

You also have the option of managing your unbranded packaging usage and selecting to only fulfill orders if they’re able to be shipped in unbranded packaging.² There are two ways to manage these settings:

• Manage your settings in Seller Central: You can choose for Amazon to fulfill MCF orders using only unbranded packaging. When placing an MCF order using the Seller Central MCF order creation page, select the “Ship only in Unbranded Packaging” option in step two, called “Add items.” This allows orders to be placed with items that are eligible for unbranded packaging.
• Manage your settings in your MCF integration: To help automate the order fulfillment process, MCF offers more than 100 integration options, so you can integrate your back-end systems with Amazon. If you use one of the integrations that support adjustments to unbranded packaging settings, you can easily manage them through that integration as well. With custom APIs, you can manage your unbranded packaging settings through the feature called “Blank_Box.”

If you do not opt to manage your unbranded packaging settings, all of your eligible inventory will be automatically shipped in unbranded packaging by MCF.

²_{This feature is only available in the US, UK, and Canada.}

Unbranded packaging for Amazon MCF orders

Expanding your ecommerce business across various sales channels can provide opportunities to reach new customers and help boost revenue growth. But multichannel selling brings additional complexities—especially when it comes to mastering logistics operations.

By utilizing a 3PL service like MCF, you can scale your business to handle surges in order volume while improving shopper satisfaction. MCF orders are automatically shipped in unbranded packaging, helping to ensure you maintain a consistent, first-class customer experience across all the channels you sell on.