Amazon has responded to sellers who are upset that the company is severely restricting the amount of inventory they can send to its fulfillment centers as part of its annual holiday restock limits.
On October 25, an Amazon moderator responded to sellers on Twitter: “To ensure a successful holiday season, we are updating our standard and apparel restock limits to allow all sellers to have 3-4 months of inventory in FBA, including accounting for seasonality and scheduled deals.”
On October 27, sellers again pointed out the problems the restock limits were having on their business in the all-important fourth quarter – one said he would devote more resources to Walmart.
The Amazon moderator again responded to sellers, writing:
“We expect about 6% of sellers in the US to be restricted from creating shipments for standard and apparel products. Our records show these sellers have already shipped over three months of inventory, accounting for seasonality and scheduled deals.
“For future changes, we will notify sellers with a message on their capacity monitor if the limits are being reduced due to changes in sales, new selection and upcoming deals, current inventory levels, or shipping lead times for shipments to fulfillment centers.”
Another seller wrote, “The problem for me (& many others) is that at an account level, it looks like I have a good amount of inventory, but at a SKU level, my best-sellers are going to suffocate. This is a critical nuance. Had I known of these inv. restrictions earlier, I would have planned diff.”
The moderator replied, “We’re noting the feedback for future cases. We continually assess our network capacity, and even though limits have reduced due to high demand, Amazon is committed to identifying any potential opportunities to increase restock limits and best support your businesses.”
One of the sellers added that a big issue with FBA restocking was “unpredictable FC receiving times.”
You can read the full October 27 thread on Twitter.
