FBA Q4 Limits - Don't believe Amazon

Fulfillment by Amazon Shipping to Amazon
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Wow… Just Wow…

Just got confirmation from our SAS manager that Amazon will indeed fine us if Amazon cuts the limits in Q4 and we are over.

Not sure if this happened to anyone else but our Nov # is reflecting a 35% cut from the Oct # and it seems like Dec will be cut further (word on the street).

All of my fellow FBA sellers probably received the email below and I bolded the best part touting 6 months of capacity. Fake News from what I am seeing. If they indeed follow through with the 26 weeks than we will more than good but now I’m not so sure…

Not that I didn’t see this coming but now I’ve gotta run 40 separate reports to figure out a really accurate forecast to ensure we are OK.

I think this one might win the ethics contest for Amazon. "Hey Sellers, stock up bigtime in October so we can cut the capacity and fine you in Nov / Dec / Jan. Sounds about right.

Again, not surprised.

Hello,
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.

The Fulfillment by Amazon team

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Yep

I said WTF a few days ago. Month 3 forecast = Nov

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Dec will be out soon. That will tell the story…

I’ll put mustard on the fines and eat them. Our ■■■■ is small so it won’t be much. I want to see what a Q4 really means for us with inventory.

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Is 100 cu ft the bare minimum? If so, I will be okay this year.

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Yup, it would seem to be based on my slower account. Seems pegged to 100 cu.

It went up to 117 cu for a few weeks once. Very exciting.

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I’m running 37 reports right now (by week) to get unit movement by week. Want to share it with SAS so they can see what we are dealing with. I can’t predict when Amazon is going to take or give us badges. It makes a big difference.

The whole thing sucks.

Doing the work for us, not SAS. Whatever I tell them ain’t gonna make one damn bit of difference.

The main reason I wanted SAS was for inventory limit exceptions. That shipped sailed once the capacity monitor showed up.

With all of this said, it does seem that everyone will be less constrained than the last few years.

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I’m going to send this to SAS manager and see how she thinks you plan for Amazon’s roller coaster.

YTD weekly unit movement on Amazon. These are big, sizeable swings in a volume account.

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show her last years as well if you have sales history as the trend (generally) goes up showing that more base capacity is required, not less - it’s stupid for them to try and push AWD as a service to generate more revenue by reducing and incapacitating capacity trend.

fuqin nuts

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They can push this all they want. Our items aren’t eligible. Shelf life…

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In our case, last year they removed our capacity by 50%.

We lost many of sales and of course they did too, because we were out of stock of many products due to the restock limit policy.

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I think Amazon learned some lessons from the last 2 years and realizes they missed out as well. That’s why things won’t be as constrained.

I gotta say though that it doesn’t look great that in 12 days it’s clear that they lied with that Sept 7th email speaking about 6 months of space for Nov.

Nobody needs are should be using 6 months of space. It’s just the freedom and flexibility that this offers that’s nice and helps FBA sellers sleep at night and plan to grow on the marketplace. Too many FBA sellers never learned their lesson and are probably using every square inch FBA offers them on a hope and a dream which makes it more difficult for businesses that know what they are doing.

Amazon announced today that they are hiring 250K full / part time employees for the holiday season.

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Yes, I get your point.

Probably that was our mistake in the past, filling up every inch FBA offers before peak season. We did that because we were expecting Amazon to cut our restock limits, so we rather have 150/100 capacity than 100/100 because that would allow us to sell more.

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I guess I’m not surprised. I was surprised that our capacity continued to increase. It certainly has the appearance of entrapment.
Storage

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They did the same crap last year and totally screwed me over on oversized items. Standard size has never been an issue because the majority of it faster moving items, but oversized SKUs are always Q4 products for me. They also charged me last year for something a bot moved into apparel when it wasn’t but it was over the limit…

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I agree with the entrapment. I’m looking at a drop of about 16.5% for November based on the estimate provided. My next month’s numbers are usually confirmed by now but I guess the bot had to take a potty break and go to lunch.

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Guess the Amazon execs missed ethics class.

If they start fining for being over the limit they CONTINUE to stress to build to (Oct’s Limit) for the Holiday season, including an email from Amazon Services at 5am this morning, I smell a class action lawsuit that I will gladly join in on.

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For all those wondering, here’s the fine for going over. $10 a foot / month.

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So, they increased yours 72% one month just to decrease it 17% the next. Makes a lot of sense.

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Sounds like fun. Do you have any interest in speaking with reporters re the imminent FTC lawsuit? I’ve been rounding up some folks for reporters to contact.

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IDK. I’m sending a very aggressive email to my SAS manager as we speak and I want this ■■■■ in writing and I want to talk to her boss.

This is insanity.

I want to see what I get back first before I take the next step. Until we can exit Amazon and replace that revenue with our plans to enter the mass market with this brand, I can’t go running to the press / govt over Amazon’s wildly unethical and illegal behavior.

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