Amazon FBA Overcounting Items Sent to Distribution Centers
We've been sending certain products to Amazon's distribution centers since about April of this year. It's been a great success and it is saving us a lot of money in fulfillment costs and time spent fulfilling orders. It basically allows us to have our employees work on things other than shipping.
The only issue we've had besides a rough start to understanding the shipping requirements is Amazon is consistently overcounting the number of items we send to their distribution centers. For example, we sent 48 items (4 skids) of one item and they counted a whole extra skid. This was the first time it happened and I thought I must have made a pretty big mistake not accounting for an extra skid that wasn't in our warehouse and was sent out. However, this has now happened 3 separate times since then. Only once have we seen a undercount but by only 1.
This accounts for roughly 25-35% of our shipments going to FBA. Now at this point, I am confident that we are sending the correct amount of items we list as I am now taking part in all preparation and shipping of items going to FBA. Really the only problem here since we keep our own count and track of the number of items at Amazon is that at some point there will be so many extra units showing in stock and if we happen to run out at our warehouse, Amazon will think that they have units still in stock when in reality they don't.
We've attempted submitting shipment investigations but they just confirm the count they originally made. At the end of the day if Amazon sells something they don't have in stock it won't go against our account since it is fulfilled by them but I don't want to inconvenience our customers if they purchase something thinking they are going to get it by a certain date just to have their order canceled a day or two later. We'd rather them purchase from another company so they can get their part when they need it. We are in the auto parts industry so time is money for a lot of our customers.
I'm thinking this is likely unfixable until Amazon's FBA gets better at counting items when receiving them but is there anything I can do to have them reaudit our inventory at their warehouses? I've seen many posts about undercounting but is overcounting common too?
Amazon FBA Overcounting Items Sent to Distribution Centers
We've been sending certain products to Amazon's distribution centers since about April of this year. It's been a great success and it is saving us a lot of money in fulfillment costs and time spent fulfilling orders. It basically allows us to have our employees work on things other than shipping.
The only issue we've had besides a rough start to understanding the shipping requirements is Amazon is consistently overcounting the number of items we send to their distribution centers. For example, we sent 48 items (4 skids) of one item and they counted a whole extra skid. This was the first time it happened and I thought I must have made a pretty big mistake not accounting for an extra skid that wasn't in our warehouse and was sent out. However, this has now happened 3 separate times since then. Only once have we seen a undercount but by only 1.
This accounts for roughly 25-35% of our shipments going to FBA. Now at this point, I am confident that we are sending the correct amount of items we list as I am now taking part in all preparation and shipping of items going to FBA. Really the only problem here since we keep our own count and track of the number of items at Amazon is that at some point there will be so many extra units showing in stock and if we happen to run out at our warehouse, Amazon will think that they have units still in stock when in reality they don't.
We've attempted submitting shipment investigations but they just confirm the count they originally made. At the end of the day if Amazon sells something they don't have in stock it won't go against our account since it is fulfilled by them but I don't want to inconvenience our customers if they purchase something thinking they are going to get it by a certain date just to have their order canceled a day or two later. We'd rather them purchase from another company so they can get their part when they need it. We are in the auto parts industry so time is money for a lot of our customers.
I'm thinking this is likely unfixable until Amazon's FBA gets better at counting items when receiving them but is there anything I can do to have them reaudit our inventory at their warehouses? I've seen many posts about undercounting but is overcounting common too?
2 replies
Seller_v95qqMBLFluEx
both undercounting and overcounting are common for FBA, nothing new.
I can only say Amazon workers at receiving are just not very good at counting.
you can request inspection after receive done, nothing else you can do.
Bryce_Amazon
Good afternoon @Seller_pGvzpun8rGPzm,
Thank you for taking the time to draft such a thorough post. Issues with inventory counting can stem from a variety of issues (incorrect prep / packaging, errors at the FC level, or even simply the incorrect amount being sent). Based on your issue, it's hard to tell for certain which (if any) of these possibilities are at play. You mentioned having requesting shipment investigations in the past, do you by chance have the case numbers for those investigations? I would like to look into this more to see if I can provide you with some additional insight or potentially escalate the issue on your behalf. Thank you!
- Bryce
