2023 holiday readiness and capacity limits in November

Fulfillment by Amazon
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" As the holiday season is just around the corner, we’re ramping up our capacity and operations in order to efficiently receive your holiday inventory and to ensure a delightful delivery experience for customers.

As previously announced, we recommend that you plan ahead to ensure that your shipments arrive by October 26, 2023, so that they can be received and ready to fulfill by Black Friday.

As we do every year during September and October, our fulfillment center teams are focused on receive processes to ensure that your products are properly placed in the right fulfillment centers. In November and December, we’ll focus on processing customer orders. This temporary shift in emphasis from receiving shipments to fulfilling customer orders will ensure faster delivery speed and maximize your sales potential during the holiday season.

Because of the way that we manage our fulfillment center operations through the holiday season, most sellers will see higher estimated capacity limits for October and lower estimated capacity limits for November. On average, the estimated capacity limits for November provide enough storage for six months of inventory.

If you need additional capacity, you can request to increase your limit with the Capacity Manager. To ensure that you stay in stock, you can use Amazon Warehousing and Distribution and we’ll automatically replenish fulfillment centers as needed.

With continued investments in our fulfillment network and new program offerings, coupled with your focus on ensuring healthy inventory levels by October 26, we’re excited to partner with you and deliver yet another successful holiday for customers."

While being banned in the OSFE, I do remember lurking and saw several people having severe capacity issues during the holiday season when Amazon was changing the goal posts. I remember specifically @ASV_Vites in the Amazon Seller Forum having particular problems.

What I don’t get is that they tell us to get as much in for black Friday and cyber Monday by October 26 while cutting the amount of allowed cubic feet for November.

I would love to hear other people’s response to this and know what you are doing to handle the capacity limitations.

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Seems like a ploy to me.

Everyone load up by 10-26 and Amazon cuts the limits to nothing on Nov 1st and then fines every single FBA seller for being over their limit.

Tell me I’m wrong…

We’ve been really good with the way the limits are set up now. We’d still be good if they cut them in half

Moral of the story is nobody (including Amazon I bet) can tell you what the limits are going to be in mid-late Q4.

I’m concerned as we have been burnt to a crisp for the last 3 years.

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Notice the capacity manager forecast for month 3 is significantly lower. Very much near my current usage which is 60-70% current capacity. Dunno if everyone is facing similar forecasts.

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I’m never going near the capacity limit again after what they pulled last year.

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I came extremely close to capacity limits in July when adding a bunch of new stuff. But it had an impact as my actual limit for August doubled what had been estimated. Even with stuffing FBA for approximately 1.5 months of inventory I am using less than 25% of capacity.

My IPI isn’t horrible (currently 604) but I’m wondering how bad it will sink if I actually sent in 3-4 months worth of product. I am also not thrilled with the holiday storage fee rates either and concerned how bad I’ll get hit. Last holiday season my storage fees were approximately 1% of FBA sales. I don’t know if that is good or bad but I definitely do not want to go higher.

I can’t tell you that you are wrong. I was suspecting the very same thing, which is the reason I hesitate to stock up on FBA. Although, I have been thinking about sending some stuff to FBA just to create a removal order for those units and send them to liquidation and salvage some of my costs on particular SKUs that wouldn’t sell if Hell froze over.

I am in the same boat. For me, the waters are too calm and I’m concerned a storm is brewing that I can’t foresee.

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I’m also noticing that my forecast restock numbers are not being updated even at sub 50 days. Obviously, I send in more inventory but now I have 67 days on inventory left and it’s still not telling me to send inventory even though, in reality the volume will just keep increasing through NYE and we are approaching the holidays. Seems strange that a second prime day is rumored with no guidance on that either. How the fuq are people supposed to plan and forecast inventory (I’m not talking about myself but most sellers) if there is incorrect information with reference to restock forecasts (guessing they’re trying to ease the brakes into the holidays) and secrecy with regards to a second prime day. And yes my warehouse is stocked but that is inspite of amazon’s multiple level of bullllllll shiiiiiiiiiit

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After reading about the possible “Prime Day” coming up (that rumor has) after initially posting here, I’ve been sending in a bunch of stuff. A lot of my Q4 stuff is here so I’m sending it in to make room for the remaining stuff I will receive within the next month. So much for trying a cautious approach.

As far as forecasting goes, I don’t rely on Amazon information. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it is that Amazon forecasts are usually incorrect one way or the other. If it too optimistic, then I pay additional storage fees. When it is too pessimistic, then I lose sales. I do my own forecasting combined with how long shipments are taking to be received by the respective FBA warehouses.

I second the sentiment.

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It’s not possible, it’s absolute.

October 10th and 11th.

As far as limits go, I am trying to get some inside info from my new SAS rep who seems great actually at some point this week.

Not only the limits but what receiving and transferring will be like as it seems the majority of receiving / transfer staff will shift responsibilities.

The SAS team is supposed to be briefed on this today. Will report back if I hear anything of value.

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Curious as to where 10/10 and 10/11 are listed - when I got to deals those are not even options to set up best deals on. Although Lighning might be available.

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Well, that is certainly welcome news for you and yours at any time, especially given the well-illustrated SAS Core Team’s foibles in recent years - but I suspect that it’s even-more welcome in a trying year.

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Well, that settles it for me. Time to start flooding the warehouse with stuff and hope some of it sells :laughing:

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It’s there for all to see. The official date hasn’t been announced as is the normal MO of Amazon for these events. SAS told me the dates but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know when it will happen. Amazon is comp-driven. They always run their Prime events on the same days of the week from the previous year. The actual dates may be off a day or 2 but they are always Tues / Wed.

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Thx, was expecting to appear under deals for some reason. But all set up. Note the minimum 20% floor on discounts or the deal will be suppressed.

I guess - it’s slightly different than BF and CM where sellers have to pay to participate and can keep the discounts at a minimum.

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I thought PED’s for PD were always 20% min???

BTW… Amazon’s system is broken meaning you can run a 7-Day deal at the same exact price leading up to the event (week prior) and the algorithm WILL NOT catch it.

We did it in July for some fantastic volume.

We watched our competitor do it the year prior without issue so we did it this year without issue.

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I’m not worried about the storage fees as much as I am about the capacity limits. Last year they screwed me. The Amazon push to AI generated thinking hinders everything. Seasonal sales should be factored in! If you send to much Q4 product in that doesn’t sell before the holiday season hits, you get slapped.

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I get it. I was screwed as well and it took all kinds of maneuvering to circumvent the unrealistic and arbitrary limits they placed. It was a nightmare.

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Here I sit… Wondering if my “estimated” capacity for next month will be increased or decreased.

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