For years, receiving a Vendor Central invitation from Amazon felt like winning a golden ticket. You became a first-party (1P) supplier: Amazon bought your products wholesale, managed the retail listing, and displayed the coveted "Ships from and sold by Amazon" badge that consumers trust. The Prime badge. The credibility. The volume. Then, in 2024, Amazon stopped issuing new invitations almost entirely - and the industry noticed.
What actually happened?
Amazon hasn't published a formal press release, and there's no official policy document that says "Vendor Central is closed." What happened was quieter than that, and more deliberate. Over the course of 2023 and into 2024, the cadence of new vendor invitations slowed to near-zero. Brands that had been in conversation with Amazon buyer teams for months found those conversations go cold. New-to-Amazon brands trying to enter via the 1P route were turned away entirely.
The reason isn't hard to deduce. Amazon's Vendor Central business model - buying inventory wholesale and reselling it - is capital-intensive and operationally complex. It requires Amazon to manage pricing, inventory risk, and fulfilment at scale across millions of SKUs. Over recent years, Amazon has made no secret of its preference for the Seller Central (3P) model, where third-party brands own the inventory risk, manage their own listings, and pay Amazon a referral fee and fulfilment cost instead. It's a higher-margin business for Amazon, with less operational exposure.
"The brands that already have Vendor Central access are sitting on something genuinely scarce. Amazon is not giving it away anymore - and that changes the strategic calculus entirely."
Who is affected, and who isn't?
It's important to distinguish between two groups of brands here:
- Existing vendors - brands already in Vendor Central - are largely unaffected operationally. Their accounts remain active, their wholesale relationships continue, and there is no indication that Amazon plans to force existing vendors to migrate. If you have vendor access, you still have it.
- Brands that don't yet have Vendor Central access - whether new to Amazon entirely, or currently operating via Seller Central - now face a fundamentally different landscape. The standard route of applying and waiting for an invitation is no longer viable. The self-service application process still exists in name, but approvals have effectively stopped.
For mid-market consumer brands - the £5M–£50M turnover businesses building their Amazon presence - this is significant. The Vendor Central model has historically offered advantages that Seller Central can't fully replicate: Amazon-managed logistics, automatic Prime eligibility, and a commercial relationship that can drive higher organic visibility for high-velocity products.
Being in Vendor Central doesn't automatically mean better results - poor vendor management still leads to poor outcomes. But for certain consumer categories (grocery, health, pet, drinks), the 1P model consistently outperforms 3P on conversion and repeat purchase metrics. Amazon's own team made its view clear during a 2026 supplier webinar: "We love dealing with Rosetta because we only have to deal with one vendor." It's a rare public signal of how Amazon views consolidated vendor relationships - and why Rosetta's position is commercially protected in a way few others can replicate.
What this means for consumer brands in practice
The closure of new Vendor Central access has three practical implications that Amazon operators need to understand:
1. Existing vendor access has become a strategic asset
If your business already holds Vendor Central access - or partners with an entity that does - that access is now scarce. Amazon cannot simply be petitioned for a new account. Brands that work through a Vendor-as-a-Service partner or managed vendor programme are, in effect, leveraging infrastructure that cannot easily be replicated.
2. The Seller Central path requires more investment to compete
Brands moving to Amazon via Seller Central in 2025 and 2026 will find themselves competing against both established 3P sellers and well-run vendor accounts that benefit from Amazon's own promotional and logistics infrastructure. The advertising investment required to achieve comparable visibility is higher, and the conversion disadvantage versus Prime-badged vendor listings is real and measurable.
3. The hybrid model is the likely long-term reality
Amazon appears to be steering towards a world where large, strategic suppliers maintain Vendor Central relationships for their core range, while newer, smaller, or more niche products are handled through the 3P model. consumer brands building long-term Amazon strategies should plan for this bifurcation rather than treating it as a temporary aberration.
What brands should do now
If you're currently outside Vendor Central and want to explore 1P access, the practical options are limited but not zero. The most credible route is through a managed vendor programme - a model where an established vendor operates wholesale accounts that brands can access as part of a broader partnership. This is the structure Rosetta Brands was built around: we hold the vendor relationships, and brands access the benefits of the 1P model through our commercial infrastructure.
If you're currently in Vendor Central and managing it in-house, the closure of new accounts is a prompt to invest properly in your existing access. Chargebacks, compliance, inventory management, and promotional optimisation all become more valuable as the competitive advantage of vendor status increases.
The era of being able to apply for Vendor Central access on demand is over. That doesn't mean the door is permanently shut - but it does mean that the brands treating their existing access, or their access to it through a partner, as a genuine competitive asset are the ones positioned to pull ahead.
Due diligence advisors BDO assessed the UK Amazon vendor management market and reached a blunt conclusion: "These guys haven't got any direct competitors." Rosetta Brands is the only business operating at this scale as a dedicated VaaS provider - 958+ brands, 8,000+ products, and a Top 15 Grocery Vendor account that took years to build.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about this topic from UK consumer brands.
Direct Vendor Central invitations from Amazon have effectively stopped for new brands. The most viable route to 1P vendor access is through a Vendor-as-a-Service partner like Rosetta Brands, which holds established vendor relationships and allows brands to access the benefits of the vendor model through a shared account structure.
Vendor Central (1P) means Amazon buys your products wholesale and sells them as the retailer - you get the Prime badge and Amazon manages fulfilment. Seller Central (3P) means you list products yourself and pay Amazon a referral fee. Vendor relationships have historically driven stronger conversion rates for consumer categories, particularly grocery, health, and pet supplies.
There is no indication that Amazon intends to close active Vendor Central accounts. The change is specifically about new account creation - existing vendor relationships are continuing as normal. Brands already in Vendor Central retain their access, which has made that access increasingly valuable as new routes close off.
Vendor-as-a-Service (VaaS) is a model where an established Amazon vendor - one with an existing, active Vendor Central account - operates as the vendor of record for multiple consumer brands. Brands trade through the VaaS provider's account rather than building their own vendor relationship. Rosetta Brands is the UK's only dedicated VaaS provider, managing over 958 brands through a single Top 15 Grocery Vendor account.
Want to explore Vendor Central access?
Rosetta Brands holds established vendor relationships with Amazon. If you're building a serious Amazon strategy and want to understand what 1P access could mean for your brand, let's talk.
Schedule a callAlternatively, feel free to contact us via email at info@rosettabrands.com