Amazon is expanding its parameters on inventory that qualifies for one-day shipping! This is excellent news for 3rd party sellers as customers will love, and could be influenced into making more purchases, because of expedited shipping times.
In a memo to sellers, Amazon wrote: "maintain the target levels flagged in your Restock Report and increase your chances of offering One-Day delivery with FBA."
Target inventory levels vary based on various factors and algorithms.
Well, you will need to consistently check your restock reports to make sure that you are qualifying, and maybe think about ordering product around the numbers that consistently qualify.
As an example, in this store, we have 6 units of "Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing - Xbox 360" and 79 units of the BIC pens.
From this example, we notice that the pens have one-day shipping while the Xbox game does not. While there doesn't seem to be a set rule on how much inventory you must have relative to how quickly it sells, Amazon seems to make it clear that the more of an item you have the easier you make it for them to guarantee the one-day shipping.
This makes sense due to the fact that if they have more of your product, Amazon can spread that product out across the country, thereby giving a better chance that one-day shipping will be successful no matter where the customer lives.
To better accommodate this, we suggest also using manufacturer bar codes on as much of your inventory as you can. When using the manufacturer bar codes, Amazon is able to put your inventory in a big bin with the rest of the stock of that item that other sellers have and keep track of it. This is similar to how a bank keeps track of your money. It also increases the total number of that one item FBA has in its possession, further guaranteeing their ability to accomplish one-day shipping to their customers.
Fulfillment by Amazon also tags a little note to their message as a promotion to entice sellers to qualify for one-day shipping. Amazon is offering a monthly storage fee discount. This promotion is designed to encourage you to send more inventory to FBA and thus increase your chances to qualify for one-day shipping. With lower monthly storage fees, "you can supply more of your popular products."
Digging a little deeper we find what the discount actually amounts to:
"By maintaining target inventory levels of eligible, popular standard-size products, you will get a monthly storage fee discount of 50% to 75%. Sufficient inventory is critical for offering faster delivery speeds on fast-moving products because it allows Amazon to place units close to customers.
The promotion began June 1, 2019, and will run through January 31, 2020."
While 50-75% is a significant amount, you should all be aware, and factor in, how long it will take you to sell out of the amount necessary to qualify for one-day shipping. You don't want to qualify too close to January with a lot of inventory then get hit with huge monthly storage fees once the promotion has ended at the end of the month. Just figure out what all costs would be before committing to make sure that you will still be profitable if you do in fact end up with a lot of inventory past Jan. 31, 2020.
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