Does Low stock affect sales or sell through?
Please i need help to understand this. Amazon recommends that to improve sell through, i should restock inventory, i know some are low and already plan to create a shipping plan, but could low inventory affect sell through.
15 replies
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
I’m not entirely sure I understand exactly what you’re asking. Having a low amount of stock, provided not sold out, is actually beneficial to your sell-through rate and is why generally it is better to send little and often.
Running out of good selling products and holding slower selling lines will have a negative impact.
Seller_FqalN2Equ13mj
This is something i have wondered about in the past.
If someone ever managed to get vision of the Amazon Buy Box Algorithm, it would look like something Willy Wonka would say, it would start with “The best price” and then have a few thousand caveats!!
We personally don’t hold a depth of stock and reorder on a daily basis to replace sold stock.
I sometimes wonder if Amazon uses our pricing history from our re-pricer to decide if it allows us to sell our last item and therefore allows the next sellers sales price to rise to within their pricing parameters.
In essence, it doesn’t give the buy box to the seller that is keeping the price down if its the last item.
I may be overthinking it though!!
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
Yes, the number of a specific item effects your BB rate etc.
Seller_6sxtIS0RbZ5k7
I have found that having low stock increases my sell through.
I sent one month of stock at the beginning of the month and haven’t replenished (I only sent enough that I couldn’t exceed the VAT threshold) and my sell though has gone from hovering around 3 to 5.5. My IPI has increased 19 points.
Seller_6sxtIS0RbZ5k7
I think it depends on whether you would be selling only just above the threshold or whether you could sell, maybe, twice that. I’ve been trying to stay under as my reclaimable VAT isn’t that high as I manufacture my own stuff for pennies so don’t have bills from wholesalers that I could write off against VAT. I’ve always looked at it (and this is a very simplified version) that, if I sell 100 cards and my net profit is 40% of my sale price, even if I can write off half of the VAT so only end up paying 10% of the sale price to the VAT man, I now have to sell 125 cards just to make the same net profit as I was making before (probably a few more than that as I would be paying VAT on the extra 25 too.)
There is the argument that you increase your prices, ie add-on the VAT, but there is a ceiling to how much people are prepared to pay for a greetings card and I think my prices are currently about right.
HOWEVER… I have recently been looking into the flat rate scheme whereby you pay a flat rate of 7.5% (6.5% in the first year) and then don’t make any deductions. I have worked out that the savings on VAT on my Amazon FBA and closing fees alone come to 6.7% so, adding on the saving on VAT on the monthly fee and advertising etc. that amount would be covered so I would be no worse off and could then afford to sell over the £85,000 threshold.
You have to have a turnover of less that £150,000 pa to be able to join the scheme and you have to leave it and go onto standard VAT once your turnover reaches £230,000 pa but that’s a lot of wiggle room 
