Should I remove excess stock? Is it harming my sales?
I’m just looking through my amazon stock and trying to make a plan for the Christmas period. At present, we have 8,500 units in FBA and Amazon are saying 4,000 of them are ‘excess stock’ which is bringing our sell through down to 0.8.
The trouble is, I know majority of this stock will sell over Christmas as always happens, so my first question is, should I pay to remove the stock (almost £1750 in removal fees), or should I pay the estimated £380 storage fees per month over the next couple of months in the hope that the units sell?
Is the fact that I have such a high number of excess units likely to be hurting sales of other items in my Amazon store?
Moving forward, for new products, I will be listing the majority as SFP rather than FBA and sending to FBA once I know they are selling, but the funny thing is that a lot of the items that are ‘excess stock’ are items that sold really well last year, and just fallen off a cliff this year.
9 replies
Seller_tRuvBEHDedp4q
That is one of the main reasons I stopped doing FBA
I find a good product. Sells well. Then suddenly falls off a cliff. Sometimes due to competitor undercutting (and selling at a loss) sometimes just because the fad has changed. Then you have to decide whether to recall stock or pay storage fees.
I then tried SFP instead - but when weekend working came in I gave up and no longer do Prime either through FBA or SFP - I offer customers a premium shipping option instead. I found it made little difference to sales - but of course what you are selling may make a difference.
Im afraid there is no easy answer to your question.
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
What you need to ask yourself, is for the couple of months you have to wait, at £380 a month, can you recoup that cost by selling all of your units for Christmas?
If not, then it will be cheaper to recall and resend that to keep them there.
You do of course have the option of discounting to start moving the stock instead.
But the trick with FBA, is simply to replenish little and often. Never have more than about a months worth or stock there.
Just reread your post. If the cost of recalling the stock is that high and your pretty sure that you will sell it, then your probably better of keeping it there.
At the end of the day though, you have to go with your gut.
Seller_24Bec1n3QCVmi
Thanks for the comments.
I do offer premium shipping on the items that I’ve not enrolled in prime but we’ve spent a fair bit of resources in our own warehousing this year, so have the ability to store small amounts of about 1,000 skus ready for same day shipping, so if I can utilise SFP, it may be a good option (although would have to negotiate the postage costs with RM).
What I think I’m leaning towards is trying to push all the ‘excess stock’ in the run up to Christmas and then whatever mason says is excess stock after Christmas, get it back and start again.
Lately, I’ve been using the ‘replenish inventory’ dashboard which shows the number of units sold in the past 30 days. I’ve found that very useful in knowing what to send and when, but the market I’m in seems to be becoming more and more crowded so it’s becoming really tough to stay competitive.
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
The main issues with carrying excess stock (aside from the cost which does increase for Q4) are the impact on IPI and restock limits. Both of those can limit your ability to get faster selling / more profitable lines into FBA.
IPI has just been done for the next quarter which starts next week, so isn’t really an immediate issue provided things improve before the next measurement week which isn’t until early next year now. I’m assuming you have enough space for your current stock, but do you have enough to send other stock in?
As for restock limits, it’s possible that the excess stock may block you from sending in other lines, but it’s also possible that you have enough room to maneuver.
