Amazon delivered some positive news to sellers who use its FBA fulfillment service. On Monday, it said it was waiving the May 15th long-term storage fee.
The fee is designed to encourage sellers to remove slow-selling goods from its fulfillment centers to optimize inventory turnover. Amazon acknowledged in its announcement that it was experiencing delays in removal operations, the reason for its decision to waive the long-term storage fees.
“We thank you for your patience as we’ve made adjustments in our facilities to protect our employees and fulfill the highest priority products that customers need. To ensure we have capacity to receive, restock, and ship your products to customers, we continue to have delays in removal operations. As a result, we are waiving the May 15 long-term storage fees. You can continue to create removal orders, but there will be delays in completing the requests. Similarly, auto-removals will be delayed.”
Amazon said that in addition to the 100,000 jobs it recently filled, it hired an additional 75,000 employees to bring FBA sellers’ products into its facilities; pick, pack and ship products; and help process removal orders.
Some sellers said they were happy to hear the news, but as one seller pointed out, having inventory sitting in limbo is frustrating. “Only wish that the 84 items that I recalled on March 14th would either be returned to me or released back into my inventory. Some of these items are the only stock I have of an ASIN.”
Announced one day after I put in a request to send the old items back to me. No one seems to have a plan.