In an Amazon Services Seller Forum post, the e-commerce giant announced that they would increase and expand their fulfillment network. This move means catering towards small and medium-sized businesses, who they've stated: "accounts for over half of the sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday."
Weeks following the onset of the holiday rush, Amazon increased restock limits for specific sellers. According to this announcement, they will now apply this allowance to benefit even more sellers throughout the marketplace. Amazon relayed that they would also be reducing the Inventory Performance Index (IPI) threshold for FBA storage limits to 400 so that only less than 10% of sellers will have storage volume limits.
Additionally, Amazon has introduced new and improved tools that sellers can use to help manage and maintain inventory levels for FBA, which include the following:
| Need a refresh on your Seller Central knowledge? Amazon's Seller University offers a comprehensive selection of free educational content right online. In a recent post, Amazon announced adding content to the library to help sellers build their knowledge or provide a better understanding of how Amazon selling works. Here are some of the new topics to check out: - Seller performance - Listing products - Pricing - FBA So if you feel like you're getting rusty on Amazon practices or need a refresh on current terms and features, now's the perfect time for you to brush up on these! |
Sellers have long been using DTC/E-commerce brand websites to support their Amazon initiatives. Although Amazon is a valuable selling channel, marketing and fulfillment processes can often feel limited. For this reason, many have turned to managing additional platforms to get their message across better, control their inventory, or develop their brand.
When should you set up your website as a seller? Here are some responses from a Reddit post with users discussing their e-commerce store advice.
"I did within a month. I got suspended twice for a fulfillment issue, so we didn't want to be at the mercy of Amazon."
"Think about it like this when selling on amazon you are dependent on amazon, even if u make millions per year, try to diversify to cut the risk of amazon suddenly holding funds or freezing accounts..."
"I've set up a Shopify-based storefront for my brand about 6 months into selling it on Amazon. Some sales surely do come in as a result of customers who do extra research on the brand they first discovered on Amazon. I use an app to integrate my FBA inventory to my Shopify orders."
According to these responses, the verdict seems to be shortly after getting started on Amazon. Whether it's to gain traffic from multiple channels, build your brand or reduce costs, an e-commerce website sure has its share of benefits. Just keep in mind, managing two channels can get demanding, so you should be prepared to allocate the workload accordingly.