Low-Inventory Fee for Expirable Products?
My understanding is that the low-inventory fee applies for all products including those that have an expiration date. My products need to stay at low inventory levels so they dont expire. Can someone at Amazon explain how I can avoid low-inventory fees? Doesn't seem fair that I need to keep inventory levels low to comply with Amazon's policies but then I'm forced to pay this expensive low-inventory fee (along with the 600%+ increase in shipping fees with the new inbound placement fee).
Seller_7LrAV0m5llaI7
Seller_2nHKMJRUHkO90
To avoid the fees, don't sell FBA, use FBM and provide a worse customer experience.
Seller_z3XfkorVSmnEY
We also sell expiration dated products. Items with very short dates are FBM. And slower moving products are also moving to FBM. That's the only way I see to avoid low-inventory fees.
Seller_h4btKGmOmHFLr
Looks like Amazon's goal is to rid their fulfillment centers of all low volume products.......unless you want to pay high fees to sell them FBA. Another way they figured out how to gouge sellers.
Seller_7LrAV0m5llaI7
Seller_h4btKGmOmHFLr
It's actually the other way around. I looked at the shipment i sent in today and only my high volume products are being charged a low inventory fee, not the low volume products we send in.
Seller_M4NWRaRnU1uDM
I agree, see above
Seller_FM4TuZBO1GUDh
They dont care. Amazon is ripping sellers off with this fee. Especially after their inventory placement fees which was supposed to spread inventory around. Yet we get hit with these because inventory is not spread around when low stock?
Expired products is an issue especially because amazon is not very good with first in, first out. So some of your items will sit for months while new stock sells
Seller_aUbEyzlSSnsDJ
Amazon is full of opportunities for amazon. We are FBM for seven years and it is getting easier to compete with FBA for us. We do have our own warehouse. We make more elsewhere. Looks like a catch 22 hope all works out.
Seller_A6A6GUNuplT1Z
I big detail that I feel Amazon didn't stress enough when rolling out their absurd "low-inventory fee" was that it is based on the average 30-90 days of supply of the PARENT ASIN - meaning if you have 10 child ASINs under a parent asin, you can have 1 child ASIN at 100 days of supply and another one of the child asins with 10 days and still not get charged the Low-Inventory fee.
So, I would look at timing your child ASIN items to "run-out" interchangeably over time to make sure your products don't sit on the FBA shelves long after the expiration date.
Seller_RQX1Rb7Z4nMBT
This also hurts us on any item at end of life (Discontinued product) as there is no way to avoid this silly new fee as you sell down to zero. In fact, the fees will get worse as your inventory depletes. In almost 10 years on FBA, this is the first time I have really felt cheated by the Amazon system.
Seller_lDD0jLSfQL7QI
Making matters 10x worse, Amazon does not use a FIFO (first in first out) method of fulfillment so compounded with this low-inventory fee, let's say you send in a bunch of inventory to meet their no-fee threshold, now you run the risk of imminent high volume of FC returns to Sellers as products get close to expiration. In other words, when you send in new inventory to FC, they can sell that all day long and have your perfectly fine (now aging) inventory sit there until it expires and it was 100% the doing of Amazon's no FIFO system. Truly a debacle by Amazon. Either implement a FIFO system or eliminate the grocery and perishable categories from the low-inventory fee. You can't do BOTH Amazon!
TaylorR_Amazon
Hi @Seller_2nHKMJRUHkO90, I apologize for the miss in response here! I see that Jim responded to this question under the news update. Please let one of us know if you have follow-up questions.
