How do you create a GWD shipment in Seller Central?
From Seller Central, go to the Inventory menu, then Warehousing and distribution (AWD), then click Create Shipment. There is no separate GWD console; the program runs inside the existing AWD interface. You must already be onboarded to Amazon Global Logistics with a payment method and importer of record on your profile, or the workflow will not let you proceed.
Andrew Erickson is the founder of Inventory Hero. He has spent years working with Amazon FBA sellers on demand forecasting, restock planning, and the cash flow side of running a private-label brand. Inventory Hero exists because every spreadsheet-based inventory system he tried eventually broke — usually right before Q4.
Confirm the category is on Amazon's GWD allow list, the ASIN is under about 49 lb and 25 inches, and the master carton is under 50 lb and 25 inches on every side. Do this while negotiating the purchase order, because Amazon only validates at shipment creation.
2
Agree the incoterm with your supplier
Settle the delivery term in the PO itself. FOB is reported to be supported across GWD locations and puts the supplier in charge of delivering to the origin facility, handing you control at that point. Confirm the accepted terms in the shipment workflow first.
3
Onboard to Amazon Global Logistics
Enroll in AGL for the US destination. GWD requires AGL for the cross-border leg and you cannot create a shipment without it.
4
Set your payment method and importer of record
Add a payment method and register your importer of record on the profile. In practice this usually means arranging an active US customs bond and signing a power of attorney for your customs broker, which is trade practice rather than a rule Amazon states.
5
Set user permissions for your team
Grant the Amazon Warehousing and Distribution secondary user access at View only or View and edit, plus the Global FBA Inventory row for the inventory page and the ledger report.
6
Create the shipment in the AWD console
Go to Inventory, then Warehousing and distribution (AWD), then Create Shipment. Select the origin facility, add the eligible ASINs, and enter carton counts and dimensions.
7
Return the customs documentation fast
Export declaration paperwork is requested on a short fuse, commonly within one business day. Line your supplier and broker up in advance so a document delay does not cost you the sailing.
8
Choose automatic or manual replenishment
Automatic replenishment lets Amazon decide the timing and quantity crossing into FBA and is what qualifies you for the fee waivers. Manual keeps you in control and generally forgoes them.
What permissions does a user need for GWD?
Under Inventory, set Amazon Warehousing and Distribution secondary user access to View only or View and edit depending on the role. Add the Global FBA Inventory row for access to the AWD Inventory page, and the Global FBA Inventory permission under Reports for the AWD Inventory Ledger report. No permissions beyond the existing AWD set are required.
How long does it take to get inventory from GWD into FBA?
Plan on weeks, not days. Ocean transit alone commonly runs about 12 to 22 days port to port, and door-to-door through Amazon Global Logistics is commonly quoted in the range of about 35 to 65 days depending on the service level and destination coast, before FBA check-in. Amazon markets GWD as reaching US fulfillment centers up to seven days faster than the alternative when paired with AGL, which is a relative claim, not an absolute transit time.
Do you need a customs bond to use GWD?
You need to be set up as an importer of record for the US, which in practice means an active US customs bond and a power of attorney on file with the broker handling the entry. Amazon requires the importer of record on your GWD profile before you can ship, so treat the bond as a prerequisite to sort out early rather than a formality at the end.
To send inventory to Amazon GWD you onboard to Amazon Global Logistics, add a payment method and importer of record to your profile, then create the shipment from the Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) page in Seller Central.1 The short version: there is no separate GWD console, AGL is a hard prerequisite rather than an option, and the two steps that actually delay sellers are the customs setup and the incoterm conversation with the supplier. Below is the sequence in the order an operator runs it, and the timeline to plan backward from.
Amazon validates ASINs at shipment creation, which is far too late to change anything.2 Check three things while you are still negotiating: the category sits on the GWD allow list, the ASIN is under roughly 49 lb and 25 inches, and the master carton is under 50 lb and 25 inches on every side.
Also confirm the account side is clean: restricted-category approval in place, listings live in the US store, no stranded units, and complete catalog attributes. The full breakdown is in GWD eligibility.
Settle the delivery term inside the purchase order, before it is issued. This is the step sellers most often do backward, and reopening a term after the PO is signed is a negotiation you will lose.
GWD is reported to have added FOB support across its locations in 2026,3 and FOB is usually the term you want here: the supplier delivers to the origin facility and clears the goods for export, and your risk and cost start from there. Amazon's captured help pages do not address incoterms, so confirm which terms your account accepts in the shipment workflow before you write one into a PO. EXW puts the domestic Chinese leg on you, which is more control and more work. FOB is the sane default for a first GWD run. See FOB versus EXW if the choice is live, and incoterms for the full set.
One practical addition to the PO: name the specific origin facility the supplier must deliver to, and who pays the domestic trucking to it. A factory two provinces from Shenzhen with an unpriced inland leg can erase the saving you came for.
GWD requires AGL for the cross-border transportation, and you onboard for the US destination specifically.1 Until this completes, the Create Shipment path will not open to you.
Set expectations on pricing while you are in here. Amazon does not publish the AGL rate card publicly, so you will not see your true landed cost until you are through enrollment and quoting a lane. That is a reason to start onboarding early even if you are still undecided, since you cannot finish the cost comparison without it.
Your GWD profile needs two things: a payment method and an importer of record.1 The IOR is the one with lead time. In practice, being your own importer of record for US entries means an active US customs bond and a power of attorney on file with the customs broker handling the entry.
Since this is the step most likely to cost you a month, here is what it actually involves. Call a licensed customs broker or your freight forwarder, not Amazon, and ask for a continuous bond. A continuous bond covers a year of entries and is the normal choice for anyone importing more than a couple of times a year; the alternative, a single-entry bond, is priced per shipment and stops making sense quickly. Directionally, a continuous bond commonly runs in the several-hundred-dollars-a-year range for a small importer, priced off your annual duty exposure, and application to issuance is commonly days to a couple of weeks rather than months. Rates and timelines vary by surety and by how clean your paperwork is, so get a quote rather than budgeting off that range. You will sign a power of attorney for the broker at the same time, which is same-day.
If you already import from China under your own name, you likely have all of this and the step is a formality. If your current supplier ships you DDP and someone else has been acting as importer, this is new work, and it is the single most common reason a first GWD shipment slips a month.
Access is granted through the existing AWD permission set, not a new one.1 Under Inventory, set "Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, Secondary user access" to None, View only, or View and edit depending on the role. Add the "Global FBA Inventory" row so the user can open the AWD Inventory page, and the Global FBA Inventory permission under Reports for the AWD Inventory Ledger report.
The practical split: your supply-chain person needs View and edit, your bookkeeper needs the ledger report and nothing else, and a VA doing reconciliation usually needs View only plus the report.
Go to Inventory, then Warehousing and distribution (AWD), then Create Shipment.1 There is genuinely no GWD tab; sellers waste real time hunting for one.
In the workflow you select the origin facility, add the eligible ASINs, and enter carton counts, dimensions, and weights. Get the carton dimensions right rather than approximate: the per-carton processing charges and the export declaration price against carton counts, and your storage bills on volume. Our CBM calculator converts carton dimensions into the cubic meters GWD prices against, and the freight container calculator will tell you whether the run fills the container you are quoting.
Once the shipment is built, the export side will come back asking for documentation, commonly on a one-business-day turnaround.4 This is where a well-run setup separates from a slow one.
Line the pieces up before you need them: your supplier's commercial invoice and packing list in the format the broker wants, your HTS classifications settled per SKU, and a named human at both the supplier and the broker who answers same-day. A three-day paperwork loop can cost you a sailing, which is a two-week delay against a program you joined to save days.
The last decision is who controls the border crossing.
Automatic replenishment lets Amazon decide how much moves into FBA and when, based on its demand read. This is the mode that qualifies you for the fee waivers on aged and low-inventory-level charges.5
Manual replenishment keeps the timing in your hands and generally gives up the waiver.
For a steady, well-forecast SKU, take automatic and bank the waivers. For anything on a promotional calendar, a launch, or a hard seasonal date, take manual, because handing timing control to a demand model that does not know about your Prime Day deal is how you end up under-shipped in the week that mattered. Many operators run automatic on the base catalog and manual on the SKUs with events attached.
The question that follows is whether you can flip a single SKU when a promo lands late. Amazon has not published the switching rules, and the waiver is assessed on a trailing replenishment window rather than on the mode you are in today, so a one-off manual shipment on an otherwise automatic SKU is unlikely to cost you the relief outright. Confirm both the switching mechanics and the waiver treatment in your account before you rely on it, and if a SKU has events on the calendar more often than not, just run it manual and stop optimizing for a waiver you will keep breaking.
About 35 to 65 days depending on service and coast4
FBA check-in after arrival
Days, and longer in Q4
Worked example. You need units sellable by November 1 for the Q4 run-up. Working backward at the slower end: FBA check-in needs about a week, so arrival by October 25. A 55-day door-to-door service means the units leave the origin facility around August 31. Origin receiving and processing takes a few days, so the factory delivers around August 27. If the supplier quotes 35 days of production, the PO needs to be signed around July 23. Treat that date as illustrative rather than precise: it is built on the slow end of a hedged transit range, and a faster service or a West Coast destination pulls it weeks later.
That is more than three months of runway from PO to sellable, which is the honest planning number for this route. Amazon's "up to seven days faster" claim is a comparison against the alternative cross-border path,6 not a promise that origin storage shortens your total cycle. Fold the whole leg into your lead time and your reorder point, or the origin buffer will read as available stock when it is nine weeks away.
The first GWD shipment is mostly a customs and permissions exercise; the second is a planning exercise. Once the pipe is open, the recurring work is deciding how much of each run to export now versus hold at origin, watching the origin storage clock so nothing times out, and keeping the replenishment leg honest in your restock timing.
Amazon Seller Central help, "Global Warehousing and Distribution" (GW6YPQELDZLQ84CF), captured 2026-08-05. Source for the AGL onboarding requirement for the US destination, the payment-method and importer-of-record profile setup, the Inventory to Warehousing and distribution (AWD) to Create Shipment path, and the secondary user access and Global FBA Inventory permission rows. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/GW6YPQELDZLQ84CF↩↩2↩3↩4↩5
Amazon Seller Central help, "Global Warehousing and Distribution product eligibility" (GR6DF4M2ZF2EHTLP), captured 2026-08-05. Source for ASIN validation at shipment creation, the conveyable box and ASIN size and weight definitions, and the account-level checks. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/GR6DF4M2ZF2EHTLP↩
Amazon's East China GWD expansion, announced July 2026, adding Shanghai and Ningbo and introducing FOB support across GWD locations. Reported by My Amazon Guy, July 2026. Confirm current terms and selectable origins in your own shipment workflow. https://myamazonguy.com/news/amazon-global-warehousing-and-distribution-shanghai/↩
Transit ranges (about 12 to 22 days ocean port to port, about 35 to 65 days door to door via AGL depending on service level and destination coast) and the roughly one-business-day customs documentation turnaround, as reported by EcomCrew, "Is the Amazon GWD Program Worth It?", 2026. Directional operator ranges, not Amazon-published service levels; quote your own lane. https://www.ecomcrew.com/amazon-global-warehousing-distribution/↩↩2↩3
Fee-relief terms tied to replenishing through GWD or AWD, as reported by My Amazon Guy, "Amazon Global Warehousing and Distribution Free Storage," 2026. Amazon has not published these thresholds on a durable public page; confirm current terms in your account. https://myamazonguy.com/news/amazon-global-warehousing-and-distribution/↩