With the exception of Amazon France, Amazon have announced that they are starting to accept FBA incoming shipments for a more varied selection of products.
However FBA incoming shipments come with a caveat and that is it will still be for a limited range of products and for those products that you can send into FBA there may be quantity limits on the amount you can replenish.
These restrictions cause a great deal of additional work for merchants, you need to check line by line which products are eligible for FBA incoming shipments and then you have to check what quantity Amazon will accept. In the past you could judge your own quantities and merchants would vary the stock they would send in – some would have a weekly replenishment, others monthly or even 12 weeks at a time. Still other sellers wouldn’t be concerned about stock levels but held all stock in FBA and so if a shipment arrived with 500 products, 500 would go to FBA. For these sellers, who may have very limited warehouse space, holding stock themselves hasn’t been in their business model.
Merchants also have concerns about how much reliance they should place on Amazon at this point in time. Having seen their stock in FBA quarantined for a month with delivery dates pushed out four or five weeks into the future and inability to retrieve their stock, some will be considering whether to send limited quantities of limited lines into Amazon and simply concluding that not only is it too much work but also too risky – what happens if the situation in France is replicated in other countries or the pandemic gets out of control and Amazon clamps down again? However some will simply wince and conclude that Amazon is such a selling machine and, (once Amazon stop giving preference to merchants who self fulfil over those with stock in FBA) that they can’t afford to have meat in the game and will once again start sending FBA incoming shipments and cross their fingers that Amazon operations are returning to normal.
“Beginning April 23, 2020, more products are eligible for shipment creation. We continue to focus on ensuring our ability to fulfil the highest priority products that customers need at this time. While a broader set of products can now be sent to our fulfilment centres, we are limiting the quantity you can send for some of these products.
This change does not apply for Amazon fulfilment centres in France, where we have temporarily suspended operations after a French court ruling on April 14, 2020.
You can see products that are eligible for shipment creation in the Restock Inventory page and the Restock report. Products that are eligible and have quantity limits will be marked with a Limited restock tag.
Please note that Amazon, including our Selling Partner Support team, does not have additional information, and we are currently not accepting requests for higher quantity limits. For answers to frequently asked questions, visit our Help page.
We are working hard to restore regular operations, and we appreciate your patience and understanding.”
– Amazon
