Amazon Warehousing & Distribution(AWD) is a more economical storage solution that permits Amazon vendors to store inventory in large quantities and to automatically or manually replenish their Fulfillment by Amazon(FBA) locations or even non-Amazon Sales channels.
Background
Amazon Warehousing & Distribution(AWD) programme expands its reach to five European countries, from the middle of August, 2026. This less expensive programme, compared to basic FBA, shall permit marketplace sellers to store products with Amazon for extended periods of time, at a beneficial rate.
With the possibility to use extended storage resources, marketplace vendors based in these European countries will have a possibility to replenish their stocks faster, cheaper, and in a more efficient way than marketplace vendors whose place of business is outside the countries that are included in the program.
From the middle of this month, AWD will be available in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. These are Europe’s five largest ecommerce markets, with Amazon leading the market in each of them.
Amazon Distribution Centers
AWD program shall permit vendors with more flexibility to store their inventory without FBA capacity limitations. The auto or manual replenishment setting eliminates the need for manual restocking and reduces the risk of stock-outs.
This benefit has shown its potential mainly during the peak selling season.
The current approach from Amazon is to use existing distribution infrastructure for the European AWD program. The company officially shared the following: “AWD helps you address supply chain challenges by providing flat-rate, long-term bulk storage in Amazon distribution centres with automated replenishment to Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fulfillment centres across Europe.”
AWD Marketplace Sellers
With the AWD programme, the connection between third-party sellers and Amazon is getting closer, and Amazon is increasing its control over the logistics chain of the registered vendors. On one hand, it could be of great benefit for marketplace vendors, from other side it creates more dependency on Amazon’s operations and less freedom with other sales channels.