Amazon's Merchant Fulfilled Network (FBM — Fulfilled by Merchant) lets UK sellers ship orders themselves rather than through Amazon's own warehouses, and Seller Central's Buy Shipping tool is the fastest way to generate a correctly formatted, tracked shipping label for each one. It's worth being clear this is a different topic entirely from FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) labelling, which involves product barcodes and shipment box labels rather than individual courier shipping labels — covered separately in our Amazon FBA labelling guide.
How Buy Shipping generates a label
From an order's details page in Seller Central, Buy Shipping pulls the buyer's address and lets you enter package weight and dimensions to purchase postage across a choice of couriers, including Royal Mail. The resulting label is a standard 100 × 150mm (4×6") format, covered in our 4×6 label size guide, identical in size and layout to what you'd get from Click & Drop, eBay or Etsy's own label tools.
Using your own courier account instead
Buy Shipping isn't mandatory — sellers with their own Royal Mail, DPD or Evri account, covered in our UK courier comparison guide, can generate labels through that account directly and manually enter the tracking number on the Amazon order. This is common among sellers who want access to negotiated volume rates or specific courier services Buy Shipping doesn't offer, at the cost of an extra manual step to keep tracking synced correctly.
Setting up your thermal printer
Whichever route you use to generate the label, printing it cleanly comes down to standard thermal printer setup: confirm your driver's media type is set to direct thermal rather than thermal transfer, covered in our direct thermal vs thermal transfer guide, and that the configured label size matches your loaded 100 × 150mm stock. Any correctly configured Zebra, Citizen, TSC or Brother printer, covered in our thermal printer buying guide, handles Amazon's label PDF without issue.
Tracking upload speed and Amazon's performance metrics
Amazon is generally the strictest of the major UK marketplaces on tracking compliance — valid tracking numbers, uploaded promptly, feed directly into seller performance metrics like late shipment rate and, for Seller Fulfilled Prime specifically, the delivery-speed guarantees tied to Amazon's Prime badge. When you generate a label through Buy Shipping, tracking uploads automatically the moment you purchase postage; if you're using your own courier account instead, that manual tracking-entry step becomes the part of your process most worth double-checking before it slips.
Batch printing and order management
Seller Central supports selecting and printing labels for multiple orders in one action, which is considerably faster than working through orders individually once volume grows. As with any thermal printer batch job, printing in smaller sub-batches tends to be more reliable on USB-connected printers than one very large continuous run, particularly useful to know ahead of a high-volume period covered in our peak season printing guide.
Common label problems and fixes
A blank, cropped or wrongly scaled Amazon label is almost always a printer driver mismatch rather than a fault in Amazon's PDF — check your PDF viewer or browser print dialog is set to "actual size" rather than "fit to page," and that your printer driver's label dimensions match your physical stock exactly. These are the same underlying causes that affect any marketplace or courier label PDF, not something specific to Amazon's own system.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to use Amazon's Buy Shipping tool for FBM orders? No — you can use your own courier account and manually enter tracking details instead, though Buy Shipping is generally the fastest way to get a correctly formatted label with tracking that syncs to the order automatically.
What's the difference between FBM and FBA labelling? FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) labels are standard courier shipping labels you print and attach to each order yourself, exactly like any other marketplace. FBA labelling is different — it involves product-level FNSKU barcodes and shipment box labels for sending inventory to Amazon's fulfilment centres, covered separately in our FBA labelling guide.
Does Seller Fulfilled Prime have stricter label or tracking requirements? Seller Fulfilled Prime carries stricter delivery-speed and tracking-upload expectations than standard FBM, since it ties directly to Amazon's Prime delivery promise, but the physical label format itself doesn't change — it's still a standard courier shipping label.
Same label, whichever route you buy postage
Our 100 × 150mm direct thermal labels print correctly for Buy Shipping labels and any courier account label alike.
Shop 4×6 Labels