FBA sellers who complained about having a significant reduction in fulfillment center storage finally received a response from Amazon, according to a post by EcommerceBytes.
Sellers have reported reduced storage space on various social media platforms in the past few weeks. In response, an Amazon moderator tweeted, "to ensure a successful holiday season, we are updating our standard and apparel restock limits to allow all sellers to have 3-4 months of inventory in FBA, including accounting for seasonality and scheduled deals."
But sellers continued to voice their frustrations concerning the need for more communication regarding inventory storage limits last October 27 on Twitter as their Q4 sales remain on the line. Some even contemplate transferring their stocks to Walmart instead.
To appease frustrated sellers (like many of you), an Amazon moderator produced an explanation on the thread:
"We expect about 6% of sellers in the US to be restricted from creating shipments for standard and apparel products. Our records show these sellers have already shipped over three months of inventory, accounting for seasonality and scheduled deals."
"For future changes, we will notify sellers with a message on their capacity monitor if the limits are being reduced due to changes in sales, new selection and upcoming deals, current inventory levels, or shipping lead times for shipments to fulfillment centers."
Because sellers were caught off guard in the first place, the moderator reassured them that their feedback would be noted for future reference and that Amazon is committed to identifying opportunities to increase restock limits.
Key Bites:
Many assumed that the pandemic propelled the majority to shift to online commerce, but that "covid bump" has long been fading. Instead, sales are in-line with their pre-pandemic numbers, as initially reported in this article by Marketplace Pulse.
Amazon's Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) isn't accessible to the public, but its quality reports include the total units sold on the platform (aka paid units growth). This metric includes sales from Amazon and its third-party sellers.
They indicated that the number of products sold has been growing 20-21% year-over-year. In Q3 2022, sales grew up to 11%. This is faster than the past four quarters, but it's still below the historical average. This means that the number of products sold for the past year is roughly equal to the levels it would have been without the covid bump.
It will be critical to determine whether the shift will follow previous trends or begin lagging. Amazon's communications indicate growth will slow down in Q4 this year. Grasping the level of development and decline has been an ongoing matter as we navigate e-commerce spending due to behavioral change through the pandemic.
Amazon is one of many experiencing slow growth. Shopify numbers are back to the trendline, too, despite the covid bump. These e-commerce giants aren't doing anything wrong; however, as people ache to return to pre-pandemic everyday life, many are going back to shopping in physical stores. We're yet to see forecasts for Amazon's growth in 2023.
Last October 11-12, 2022, Amazon held its first "second Prime day" ever. Data released to Chain Store Age by Adjust showed that mobile app usage was 7% higher than July's Prime Day.
This increase is likely due to the holidays being around the corner. As a result, consumers are starting to shop for everything they need for this season, evident in the reported average session length. Prime Day in July had an average of 10.77 minutes. October numbers were at 11.34 minutes.
On the other hand, app installs were still 1% higher last July. Adjust's Regional VP Americas, Natalie Portier, stated that e-commerce apps must boost their marketing efforts. This is true especially now that holiday sales and the shopping season's peak move earlier each year, something to keep in mind as you plan your Q4 inventory and sales.
As a seller, continuously optimizing your product detail page is critical. It is one of the most valuable spaces to communicate the description and benefits of the product.
Amazon introduced the new Manage Your Experiment features to help sellers A/B test the different aspects of a listing. This allows sellers to discover the best ways to maximize a detail page's potential. Try testing out these three features to see what works best for you:
With this new tool, you can decide how long your experiment will run before collecting the data to make changes to your listing.
Get the most out of your product detail pages by putting them to the test! It might take some time to get the perfect strategy, but once you do, the only way from this point is up!