Who is Tier 1 Seller?

Chinese are Tier 1 sellers. Because they have ability to source cheapest cost merchandise and ability to ship containers to FBA. And ability to do local inspection before shipments going to US. And majority of these Tier 1 sellers are large enough to have resources both in US and China.

Who is Tier 2 Seller?

Americans are considered Tier 2 sellers. They live in United States and able to source inventory within United States and also from China or elsewhere and ship locally to Amazon FBA warehouse and also able to handle unfulfillable inventory by recalling the inventory back home since he/she lives in United States. They don’t have to use any expensive 3FC (3rd party fulfillment centers) 

Who is Tier 3 Seller?

Anyone from outside United States and outside China with the ability to create an Amazon account and able to source inventory from China and ship to Amazon’s warehouse in United States would be considered a Tier 3 seller. Disadvantage for Tier 3 seller is not able to source cheapest inventory and not able to handle cheap returns since they have to rely on expensive 3FCs to handle their returns so they usually don’t go into bigger and heavier products. They target light weight products mostly. Anyone from Malaysia, Germany, Australia etc is considered Tier 3 seller.

Who is Tier 4 Seller?

These sellers are mostly from disadvantaged marginalized 3rd world or Least developed countries in the world. First of all they have no financial inclusion, no proper banking, no PayPal. Secondly they are not in Amazon’s allowed sellers list so they can never create Amazon accounts. Due to this they are not even on the world map. Just few limited smarter individuals will be able to create accounts through relatives and will start selling bit of products but this won’t make any impact on GDP or won’t make any impact on local job market, service industry or manufacturing sector. In other words Tier 4 would be highly marginalized, bullied and cornered and won’t have any standing, any recognition or any impact of any kind. Just imagine a little orphan child sleeping in the corner of a street. Who cares? Why someone would care? He/she is on his own.