Restock Limits are Killing Me!
I get the need for warehouse limits. But the methodology Amazon uses and how it constantly changes is killing me!
I have plenty of space available overall but I sell a lot of Apparel and my apparel limit is constantly close to max lately. But it changes every week. How are we supposed to manage our business.
I’ve been selling apparel like crazy lately so my limit went up a week or so ago so I was ordering more from my manufacturer. I was happy I would be able to prepare for christmas and not run out of stock like last year.
BUT! Today my restock limit on Apparel dropped again way below my current inventory level!
How can sellers manage their business when there is no warning. My IPI is only going up and is in the green.
Is there anything that can be done? I’m selling like crazy. Managing my IPI. Clearing out old inventory through crazy sales and still my limit arbitrarily just lowers today. Ugh.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Restock Limits are Killing Me!
I get the need for warehouse limits. But the methodology Amazon uses and how it constantly changes is killing me!
I have plenty of space available overall but I sell a lot of Apparel and my apparel limit is constantly close to max lately. But it changes every week. How are we supposed to manage our business.
I’ve been selling apparel like crazy lately so my limit went up a week or so ago so I was ordering more from my manufacturer. I was happy I would be able to prepare for christmas and not run out of stock like last year.
BUT! Today my restock limit on Apparel dropped again way below my current inventory level!
How can sellers manage their business when there is no warning. My IPI is only going up and is in the green.
Is there anything that can be done? I’m selling like crazy. Managing my IPI. Clearing out old inventory through crazy sales and still my limit arbitrarily just lowers today. Ugh.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
34 replies
Seller_spBEmM4GC9jW1
Don’t send in stuff that isn’t moving.
Your IPI has nothing to do with unit limits. They are based on Amazon capacity and your ability to move units through the system.
Sell more, get more space. Don’t have inventory gaps causing sales to drop or Amazon will think your stuff is stagnant.
Should be no need to clear out old inventory, unless you are sending in too much stuff.
Seller_ODGnET55Q6yM6
We also noticed changes in stock limits that are incomprehensible and can cause the failure of seasonal businesses without more transparency on the part of Amazon. Back in August (I can’t remember the exact date) there was a major reduction in our stock limits ahead of Q4 that could have prevented us from shipping the correct amount of inventory if we didn’t opened our shipment plan in July.
Then about a month ago stock limits were raised to double our needs. We thought Amazon had updated their calculation to account for seasonality, which can be extreme for us in Q4.
Today we noticed stock limits were almost halved, so the theory that Amazon was using seasonality data can not hold.
All these changes were not communicated with sufficient lead time by Amazon. I understand that announcing a stock limit reduction can cause a buildup of shipments to FBA and Amazon needs to preserve warehouse space and service bandwidth. But for highly seasonal businesses that are relying on FBA slashing storable units can cause massive oversold inventory and ultimately failure.
Gary_Amazon
Thank you, Zechy_Inc, for posting in Seller Forums. You've come to the right place to learn from other seller about how they optimize FBA inventory and storage parameters.
The advice by VTR is truly helpful. I also want to share this help page with important information about managing your FBA inventory storage limits.
-Gary
Seller_mOphvAD1RCAqb
@Gary_Amazon The biggest problem that we are running into with the restock limits is that they are completely unpredictable and are making it impossible to plan effectively. Three weeks ago, our limit for standard-sized units was 23k. Then it fell to 16k, then 13k, and then again to 11k. So, in less than a month, our capacity to send standard-sized units to FBA fell by more than half without warning and without any way to accurately predict that would happen. I get the need to limit capacity, but Amazon should really consider making the process a bit less dynamic and setting the restock limits for longer periods of time.
Seller_X9AxWaXfNnGAl
We all need to face it, but Amazon is positioning FBA for Just-In-Time inventory. That means that we will all need to use other logistics to stage our inventory and only keep enough inventory at Amazon for certain and fairly immediate sales. Though the warnings and restrictions appear to be based on 90 days of inventory, in a practical sense, forecasting is not really accurate enough to ensure that everything in current inventory would be sold within 90 days. Some will sell faster than expected and some will take longer to sell.
All you really can do is continually remove inventory that is moving slower - not all of it, but anything you are not confident that you can sell everything in that timeframe. AND replace that inventory with inventory that is moving faster. This will be really problematic for new products which you don’t have sales history for that you will find some short and some overstocked. That will continue until there is sufficient sales history to justify the changes to the capacity available. I believe that this process is broken in many ways. Not only is it not reactive enough to allow for new products to be added, it is too reactive to the continuous changes related to product sales for existing products.
I, personally, have contacted the ESRT regarding what is wrong with the process and what needs to change. Key messaging is a need for stability. Inventory purchases often have lead times of 6 months or more, meaning that it is important to plan for capacity much ahead of time. Just-in-time is just not feasible with storage and fulfillment.
Of course, there was no response, but I am sure that it has been seen and shared where appropriate. Who knows, it might bear some fruit in the future.
Seller_ODGnET55Q6yM6
What I like about the IPI is that it’s a gradual gauge of inventory performance. You see an update every week and can take action to address the problem on time. But with the restock limits you have no warnings or guidance. It’s a FU to sellers, whatever action you take to maintain an IPI score > 450 doesn’t count.
Seller_157SyJFZ2mDq2
I AGREE WITH YOU!
My inventory level on all of my asins is for about 30 days and I cannot send more!!
Seller_z2EMuTXiRA4y5
As an update. Interestingly enough. As I said yesterday my restock limit on Apparel went up from about 1100 units to 1200 units yesterday giving me a bit of room. Today it dropped to 1000 putting me over stock again. Wild ride. Not sure what tomorrow will bring.
More concerning though is my overall limit, which I’ve never come close to, dropped quite a bit. it is now 4914 down from 6500 plus. (I can’t recall what it was yesterday but I had tons of room when I checked but I was over 1/2 utilized)
That kind of huge drop concerns me. On the bright having great sales numbers the last few weeks so I hope somehow the algorithm kicks the other way. Unless the unknown factor (overall warehouse availability ) is just shrinking everyone.
