Amazon have announced the 2022 Christmas FBA deadlines – the dates you need to have stock delivered to their warehouses in time to be processed and in stock in time for both the Black Friday weekend and for Christmas. Failure to meet the Christmas FBA deadlines could leave your stock sitting unsold on a pallet until the sales peaks are over.
Christmas FBA deadlines for 2022
You need to make sure that your inventory arrives at fulfilment centres by these dates:
- Black Friday week: 4th of November
- Christmas: 11th of December
We receive a high volume of shipments during the holiday season, so check your recommended replenishment quantity and plan shipments well ahead of time.
– Amazon
Managing your inventory proactively is one of the most effective strategies during busy selling seasons. You need to make sure that you have enough stock available for your most popular products in order to avoid selling out just at the time of year you want to maximise on sales opportunities.
Many sellers will be checking stock either weekly or monthly with a regular FBA replenishment schedule, but in the run up to Peak you should consider changing this to daily and increasing the stock holding you have in FBA. Even if your stock arrives well in advance of the Christmas FBA deadlines, it is likely to not only take Amazon longer to process your stock at the busiest time of year, but if they split your stock between multiple warehouses to enable faster or same day delivery to customers that will also take time.
If you are a multi-channel seller, you’ll also want to ensure your inventory is kept updated on all channels regularly. Whilst you may have software to automate the process, when you are selling through the last of your inventory this is when overselling is most likely to occur. Make sure you’ve account for any unsaleable returns and deduct from available inventory and do a stock take well in advance of Peak so that you are confident that the product quantities you think are in stock are actually in stock.
