The FBA storage crunch

[Phd]

In Canada, the regular size storage numbers are crazy low. They just drop by another 300 units on us. 320 listings. Christmas they put us up to 2500 pieces reg size. Today it dropped from 1800 to 1500. Making it real difficult to expand like we usually do this time of year.
Large items they have had us at 1000 pieces since forever.
I know it depends on current inventory, sales ranks, etc etc.

My complaint is that Amazon doesn't restrict itself (obviously), but Brand registered Manufacturers don't really have limits either. Since Keepa will usually tell you inventory of sellers, it's easy to see manufacturers with 100's of pieces in stock.

With only the 2 of us doing this, we have always used FBA.

Anyone have experience of getting numbers up higher, other than only holding 2-3 weeks inventory in FBA?

Missing the old days when AZ wanted 3 months worth of inventory in stock.

PHD

[Phd]

Did some trial work on this. Removed items that were stocked for 6+ months, deleted some inactive "watch" listings. Removed some items to bring sell through rate to 2 months.

5 Days later AZ bumped us up by 400 pieces.

Conclusion: they want minimal stock (1-2 months) sell through.
The old system of AZ wanting 90 days inventory doesn't work any more.

We will continue forward with 2 months supply and see how their system adjusts.

Of course this is Canada. The US gives a lot more room for you to load up.

PhD

[SaiJin]

Wasn't aware that canada is like this...

[Phd]

Originally Posted by SaiJin

Wasn't aware that canada is like this...

Yeah. Been two Christmas runs with tight limits. When selling toys, it gets frustrating. Even for Black Friday, AZ keeps sending messages to load up, but they just aren't giving enough room.
The FBA centers are expanding fairly quick, but letting Name Brand Manufacturers send into FBA with little or no limits really hurts the 3rd party people. You really need to adjust on the fly, and expand at a slower rate.