Old Inventory and Sales Velocity

[GhostDog]

Hello,

I'm interested in opening my first Amazon Stealth account and I'm concerned about my inventory matching my banned account's inventory. I was thinking of listing one old product with seven variations (colors) as well as 10 new products that I've never sold before (books). Obviously I have more stock of my old product - what quantity of the new products should I keep to minimize the chance of being linked? (will it look bad if I sell 35 units of the old products and only 6 / 10 of the new products?)

Alternatively, I can offer the new products only, which will likely result in very low revenue for the first month. Is there a minimum requirement for sales (quantity or $ amount) for the first month in order to pass the review?

[rsot]

Review can happen at any amount so there is no minimum requirement per say.

As for new to old ratio...there is mixed consensus around, varying 1:5 to 1:10 and even higher.

[GhostDog]

Thanks for your reply. I will try to maintain a reasonably low ration of old to new inventory.

I ended up sending two books to Amazon, to sell via FBA. The items had not even reached the warehouse when I was hit by the review, the text of which I will paste below:

Hello,

We are conducting a review of your account. During the review, a rolling reserve will be applied to funds in your account from your sales on Amazon.com.

The reserve will be equivalent to your gross sales amount for the preceding 28 days. Based on your order volume, the amount of the reserve may change daily.

When your account balance exceeds the reserve amount, funds will be available per your disbursement schedule.

You can view your account balance, estimated payment schedule, and reserve amount on the Payments page in the Reports section of Seller Central (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/...t-summary.html).

Account reviews are intended to ensure the timely shipment of orders and compliance with our selling policies. Please continue to fulfill orders and list only items that you are able to ship by the Expected Ship Date.

You can help with the review process by sending us more information about your business. To do so, click the “Appeal” button next to this notice on the Notifications page in the Performance section of Seller Central (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/...fications.html).

To learn more about account reviews, search “Velocity Limits and Account Reviews” in Seller Central Help.

We will notify you by e-mail when our account review is complete.

Thank you for selling on Amazon.com.

Regards,

Merchant Approval Team
www.amazon.com

I am given the option to appeal in order to expedite the review process, and as far as I can tell this is a completely normal review, and not something indicating that I've been "linked". My items have not sold yet, there's no feedback for me to solicit.

When I click on the appeal button, I am presented with the following questions, marked with an * indicating they are required:

* Inventory management
How do you manage your inventory?

* Selling history
What is your selling history outside of Amazon?

Additional information (Optional)
Any other information in support of your appeal?

Is it a good idea to send in an appeal? Does anyone have experience answering these kinds of questions with success? I've seen around the forums that a few people are advising against sending in the appeal, but that seems counter-intuitive to me.

Thanks so much for any help you guys can provide.