On September 15, Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch and Deschutes County Commissioner Tony DeBone toured DUG2, Amazon’s first facility in Central Oregon. The opening also showcased local small businesses that sell through Amazon, Square Baby among them, as CBN reported. Redmond Economic Development, Inc., which led the multi-year recruitment, puts the project at roughly $25 million and more than 300 regional jobs. Shoppers in Redmond and nearby communities now get same-day and next-day delivery.
The sellers in that room are dealing with a quieter Amazon change, one that took effect January 1 and touches their margins more directly than any delivery station. Since the start of the year, getting inventory ready for Amazon’s warehouses has been entirely their job. That can mean a label printer and a cleared workbench, or it can mean a contract with someone else.
The Job Amazon Handed Back
Amazon announced in July 2025 that it would stop offering prep and item labeling for FBA shipments in the US marketplace on January 1, 2026. The rule applies to inventory sent straight to FBA and to stock that flows through Amazon’s own programs, including Amazon Warehousing and Distribution and Amazon Global Logistics. Prep sounds like a small thing. It covers the FNSKU barcode that ties each unit to a seller’s account and the poly bags or bubble wrap Amazon requires for certain products. Sets and bundles have to be assembled before they ship, too.
The penalty for getting it wrong has teeth. An Amazon representative told sellers on the company’s Seller Forums that shipments created after January 1 that arrive without proper prep and labeling won’t be eligible for reimbursement if the goods are damaged or can’t be traced. Before the change, a seller could pay Amazon to apply labels and packaging. Now a missed step can leave the seller holding the loss.
A Delivery Station Doesn’t Change the Math
DUG2 was built to speed deliveries to customers in Redmond and the surrounding communities. Getting a seller’s products into Amazon’s network in the first place is a separate step, and its economics are set nationally. Amazon’s inbound placement service fee, in effect since March 2024, adds a per-unit charge when a seller ships everything to a minimal number of inbound locations and lets Amazon spread the units around. Splitting cartons among the fulfillment centers Amazon selects reduces or removes the fee. Amazon has also said placement fees can run higher for shipments sent to inbound locations in the West.
That puts an Oregon seller in an odd spot. Amazon wants inventory spread close to customers, and for a brand with national sales, a large share of those customers live east of the Rockies. Some of the cartons will end up in East Coast buildings one way or another. The only question is who moves them there and who pays for it.
Where the Labels Should Go On
For a maker producing in Bend or Prineville with a handful of SKUs, prepping in-house is often the simplest answer. A thermal label printer and a careful read of Amazon’s packaging requirements cover most of it. Importers face a different calculation. A container of finished goods made overseas doesn’t need to visit the High Desert at all. Trucking it to Deschutes County for labeling, then sending the cartons back out across the country, adds freight legs and days to every replenishment cycle.
Importers can also land part of each order on the East Coast and prep it there. The Ardi Express warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, unloads containers and handles FBA prep about 25 miles from the Port Newark and Elizabeth terminals. Five Amazon fulfillment centers sit within 65 miles of the building, and standard prep orders turn around in 24 to 48 hours. A Bend owner using that setup never touches the cartons. Labels go on in Edison, and the inventory moves into Amazon’s network on the East Coast while the owner runs the account from Central Oregon.
Decisions to Make Before Peak Season
Holiday inventory has to be checked in well before shoppers start ordering, so the prep decision belongs on this fall’s calendar. Start with an audit of every ASIN that relied on Amazon’s prep service in 2025, and confirm its current prep requirement in Seller Central. Then put in-house labor costs next to a prep provider’s per-unit rates, and run both against the placement fees each shipping plan would trigger.
Sellers who choose outside help should ask a few direct questions. Is the provider registered in Amazon’s Service Provider Network? What is its standard turnaround, and what happens during the November rush? What does it pay if goods are lost or damaged inside its building? The answers vary widely from one warehouse to the next, and they carry more weight now that Amazon no longer fixes a missing label on its end.
At the DUG2 opening, local sellers got a look at how quickly Amazon can now deliver around Redmond. That speed only helps a seller whose inventory cleared check-in weeks earlier. Getting there starts with a correctly labeled carton, wherever the label goes on.
