Amazon Vendor Economics · Glossary

SIPP (Ships in Product Packaging)

Updated October 25, 2026

SIPP (Ships in Product Packaging) is Amazon's packaging certification program: a certified item ships to the customer in its own package, or with no Amazon prep, and certification removes Amazon's prep requirements and therefore its prep fees. Amazon renamed Frustration-Free Packaging (FFP) to Ships in Product Packaging effective February 2024, and FFP and SIOC (Ships In Own Container) survive as tier names, so all three terms are in use for one program. Amazon's vendor guidelines (version 11.3, March 2026) set three tiers: Tier 1 Frustration-Free Packaging adds curbside-recyclable materials and easy-to-open requirements to the Tier 2 standards; Tier 2 SIOC ships in the manufacturer's own package with no Amazon prep or overbox; Tier 3 Prep Free Packaging needs no Amazon prep but still ships in an Amazon overbox.

For a first-party (1P) vendor, SIPP sits on both sides of the ledger. Certification removes prep fees, and a non-sortable item that is not compliant draws a packaging compliance chargeback of $1.80 to $4.40 per unit by shipping weight, effective January 2025. That Vendor Central chargeback is separate from the Seller Central SIPP fee that third-party (3P) sellers pay. Sortable items, in North America at most 18 x 14 x 8 inches and at most 20 pounds, are not eligible for SIOC chargebacks under Amazon's own glossary, so the exposure sits with non-sortable items. A packaging chargeback on a sortable item contradicts Amazon's own definition. It is also a compliance charge, separate from CRaP (Can't Realize a Profit), Amazon's label for an item it cannot resell profitably.

Why is there a packaging chargeback on an item you never certified?

Because Amazon grants and withdraws certification itself, and scopes it narrowly.

1. Amazon can enroll items on its own, through fulfillment-center testing and machine learning, so a vendor can hold certifications it never applied for and later be decertified. Amazon decertifies on damage and non-compliance rates it monitors; after decertification, a 60-day grace period waives chargebacks.
2. Certification is per vendor code and per marketplace. A vendor code is Amazon's supplier number for a vendor, and certification does not carry across codes automatically.
3. Amazon measures the package as it arrives, not as designed, so a box designed at the sortable limit can measure non-sortable. Where the dimensions are the dispute, request re-measurement through Vendor Central Support under Vendor Operational Performance.

Certification status shows on Vendor Central's Operations dashboard or the Product Prep and Packaging dashboard; packaging chargebacks sit under Reports, then Operational Performance. For chargeback prevention, check each item's status on every vendor code it ships under.