DI (Direct Import) - Amazon Glossary

Direct Import (DI) is a supply chain configuration where an Amazon seller or Vendor Central partner ships bulk inventory directly from an overseas manufacturer to an Amazon fulfillment center. This routing completely bypasses domestic intermediaries, and in specific vendor programs, Amazon acts as the official importer.

Executing this routing model significantly lowers your per-unit landed cost by stripping away domestic warehouse handling and storage fees. However, the extended transit times lock up your working capital for months, requiring precise demand forecasting to prevent devastating stockouts and protect your overall account health.

How Do You Calculate Direct Import Landed Costs?

To evaluate if the savings of bypassing a domestic warehouse justify the logistical risks, your accounting team must calculate the exact cost of placing a single unit into Amazon's physical possession via an overseas shipment.

$$ \text{DI Landed Cost} = \text{FOB Price} + \left( \frac{\text{Ocean Freight} + \text{Tariffs} + \text{Origin Prep}}{\text{Total Unit Volume}} \right) $$

To execute this calculation accurately, you must isolate the following operational variables:

• FOB Price: The base cost to manufacture the product, provided by the supplier as "Free On Board" at the origin port.

• Ocean Freight: The total cost charged by your carrier to move the shipping container across the ocean to the destination port.

• Tariffs: Government customs duties applied to your specific product classification codes.

• Origin Prep: The costs associated with third-party inspections, palletizing, and Amazon-compliant labeling performed in the manufacturing country.

Why Do Sellers Transition to Direct Import Routing?

As e-commerce brands scale their catalog and order volume, domestic supply chains become an expensive bottleneck. When you ship goods from a factory to a local domestic warehouse and then forward them to Amazon, you pay for labor and storage twice.

Transitioning to a DI model eliminates this redundancy. By utilizing services like Amazon Global Logistics (AGL), sellers can book ocean freight directly within Seller Central. This allows the inventory to flow seamlessly from the factory floor straight into the Amazon network.

The primary tradeoff for this cost reduction is a massive increase in your average Lead Time. Domestic forwarding allows you to drip-feed inventory into Amazon over several weeks, preserving your restock limits. A direct shipment forces you to send massive quantities of inventory at once. If your product does not sell as quickly as anticipated, you will incur severe long-term storage penalties from Amazon.

What Are the Compliance Risks of Direct-to-Amazon Freight?

When you utilize a domestic third-party warehouse, that facility acts as a safety net. If a factory mislabels your barcodes or packages your items poorly, your domestic team can fix the errors before Amazon ever sees the inventory.

In a DI model, that safety net disappears. Your Freight Forwarder moves the container from the overseas port directly to Amazon's receiving dock. If the manufacturer prints the wrong ASIN labels on your master cartons, Amazon will receive the inventory incorrectly. Customers will order one product and receive another. This immediately spikes your return rate and triggers an automatic listing suspension.

Furthermore, you must establish clear legal liability regarding the Importer of Record. This is the entity legally responsible for paying import duties and ensuring the goods comply with all local safety regulations. If your customs paperwork is filed incorrectly, government border agencies will seize your container at the port, completely destroying your inventory timeline.

How Does Fulfillment Strategy Alter Import Logistics?

Your underlying logistics model dictates your eligibility and execution requirements for overseas routing.

• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): Sellers utilizing the FBA network benefit the most from direct routing. Once the Bill of Lading is generated and the container arrives at the destination port, Amazon's partnered carriers pull the freight directly to the fulfillment center. This maximizes your prime eligibility window and reduces your physical handling requirements.

• Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM): The DI concept does not functionally apply to FBM sellers in the traditional Amazon sense. If you fulfill your own orders, you are simply operating a standard import business, bringing goods to your own commercial facility for individual parcel distribution.

What Do Real-World Import Scenarios Look Like?

In Practice: A professional brand sells a 2lb product in the Home & Kitchen category (a silicone baking mat set). They order 10,000 units from a manufacturer in Shenzhen. Instead of shipping the container to a warehouse in California, they book the shipment via AGL directly to an Amazon fulfillment center in Texas. They hire an independent inspection agency to verify the barcode labels before the container leaves China. The shipment arrives, clears customs seamlessly, and checks into Amazon. By skipping their domestic warehouse, the brand saves $1.20 per unit, driving $12,000 of pure profit directly to their bottom line.

Common Mistake: A competing vendor orders an identical shipment of 10,000 baking mats. They attempt a DI routing but skip the third-party inspection to save time. The factory accidentally applies the barcode for a red baking mat onto the boxes containing blue baking mats. The container arrives directly at Amazon. The fulfillment center scans the boxes and logs them as red mats. Hundreds of customers order red mats but receive blue ones. The defect rate hits 20 percent within three days, Amazon permanently suspends the ASIN, and the vendor's cash flow is paralyzed.

What Is the SoldScope Expert Tip for Origin Inspections?

The most dangerous assumption a seller makes during a direct import is trusting the manufacturer to handle Amazon's strict compliance labeling. Factories specialize in mass production, not e-commerce logistics.

To protect your capital, mandate that your supplier routes the finished goods to a local consolidation warehouse near the origin port (such as a facility in Shenzhen or Ningbo) before loading the ocean container. Hire an independent inspection team to visit this facility. Have them physically scan a random sample of barcodes with a mobile application to ensure they register correctly. This minor upfront cost acts as an absolute firewall. Once the container is on the water heading directly to Amazon, you have zero ability to intercept and fix compliance errors.

How SoldScope Helps

SoldScope replaces manual spreadsheet guesswork with automated, API-integrated workflows, ensuring your business scales safely into advanced supply chain models like Direct Import. Because overseas shipping requires months of lead time and locks up massive amounts of working capital, sellers utilize our Product Research tool and proprietary sales estimation models to accurately project long-term unit velocity. This ensures you only order the exact volume of inventory your market requires. Additionally, by monitoring your active keywords with the Rank Tracker, your operations team can detect sudden traffic shifts early, allowing you to adjust your overseas production schedules before a costly stockout occurs.