Receving FBM Orders for FBA-Only Products ? ?
I’ve encountered a strange and frustrating issue on Amazon Seller Central since yesterday, and I’m hoping someone might have insights or has experienced something similar.
Yesterday, I sold a product through FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant), which was odd because that product only exists in my inventory as FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). When I checked my inventory in Seller Central, the product is listed only once under FBA. Yet somehow, Amazon is showing it online as being sold by me twice—one as FBA and one as FBM.
To fulfill the order, I had to create a manual fulfillment order (which was expensive) because canceling the order would negatively impact my metrics. I immediately logged a case with Amazon to investigate the issue.
This morning, to my shock, I received two more FBM orders for products that exist exclusively in my inventory as FBA, and one of those orders was for the same product as yesterday. I’ve been on the phone with Amazon support, but I haven’t been able to get a clear resolution.
Here’s the situation:
These products do not exist as FBM in my inventory; they’re strictly FBA.
My Seller Central inventory only shows one SKU for the affected ASINs, and it’s FBA.
I cannot adjust stock or manage these phantom FBM listings because they don’t appear in my inventory.
Fulfilling these orders via manual fulfillment is significantly more expensive than FBA fees, and it’s not sustainable.
I’m completely at a loss for how this is happening.
Has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you resolve it? Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated!
14 replies
Seller_ginKiclb01hvT
We had this once before. All we had to do was Convert the ASIN in question back to Fulfilled by Merchant. Left it for an hour then changed back to Fulfilled by Amazon (please be aware that your stock will show as stranded until you change back)
I hope your issue is as simple to fix
Seller_i38MVIJDH23AY
This used to happen to me a lot. Not so much recently fortunately.
I fixed it the same way as ToYourHomeLtd mentioned.
It was impossible trying to get seller support to understand, and this was several years ago. They have got a lot worse since then.
I was using a third party stock management tool and I managed to get them to escalate it through their own contacts. I am not sure if it ever got resolved but it certainly reduced.
Seller_Zovt1x5tinPh5
Happened to me as well. And the customer expected same day delivery. And had about 5 orders same day.
Did AZ help? No.
I had to delete the order. Wait till inventory is stranded in FBA. Relist with the same SKU number as before. That fixed it.
Seller_yKaAOF5OG0p6m
Sadly, this has been an ongoing issue with us for years and trying to get Seller Support to understand the issue is night on impossible.
This issue is caused by Amazon creating what is known as a ghost listing, and apparently only occurs when third party inventory management software is used.
Apparently, the only workaround is to delete the product entirely and then relist 24 hours later. That being said we've tried this in the past and it hasn't worked...
Seller_HB2MC8FR8Gmz5
I think this is an issue with the Amazon platform and 3rd party apps or flat file uploads. The system generates "ghost" listing sometimes. It is something to do with FBA items being out of stock but the file upload or import shows stock. Instead of ignoring the fact that there is not stock for that item in FBA, it instead generates a new listing in the background. you cannot see it in seller-central, but it is visible on the store. I cannot recall exactly how it was resolved but it was like the suggestions. Convert the item to seller fulfilled. The only issue is you do not know what items it has happened to. I had the MD's office involved to resolve it. They did a bulk upload to fix so I guess it is a matter of downloading a flat file, check it against inventory, make any corrections and re-upload. I would guess you need to ensure items out of stock are included with a qty of zero.
Hope this is of use.
Seller_HuhP221NahSdW
Sorry no idea how to fix it but it happened to me immediately after having uploaded my country of origin file - had to go through all FBM inventory setting inventory to zero where appropriate.
Seller_ER5tXt5WLCYy8
It has started again. An order received for a Merchant Fullfilled Item.
I only have FBA items now.
When I go to the link from the order, it is there for people to buy, and I have 5 in stock apparently !?!?!
How and why is this happening?
Why do suuport associates not read! The first response was that it exists in my invenotry, but they have just highlight an FBA SKU of that ASIN, with the ohter fact ignored that that SKU has ZERO inventory.
ARGRHH
Seller_vj8DE9eF21BTE
Most of our listings are converted to FBM daily, and we need to process those orders as they come in. To reduce the number of FBM orders, we convert listings from FBA to FBM and then back to FBA on a daily basis.
Would converting the existing affected listing/s to FBM and then creating new FBA listings work?
Leave the old listing/s at FBM with 0 units. Will the FBA units be attached to the new FBA listing?
Seller_76AUwmqvSyRIM
I don't understand. Do you mean you convert them yourself every day for some reason or are they being converted without your input or desire?
If it's not you doing it, this is not the way the system works. They should not convert to FBM unless you do this.
Do you have any automation or 3rd party software running in the background? Maybe that is what is causing this.
