Stranded Inventory
Inventory for Amazon means the stock of products owned by sellers to sell in the e-commerce market. Now, the biggest support to the sellers for outsourcing the shipment of their product is Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA). The inventory will be stored in fulfilment centers. Amazon will pack, store, pick and ship your order to the respective customer. Amazon will also help in returning the products and customer service regarding any defaults and problems. For these services Amazon will charge some amount as a FBA fee, which depends on the weight and size of the product.
Stranded inventory is the Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA) inventory which does not have any active offer and thus is not available for sale on the Amazon platform. In a nutshell, all the products available in the Amazon store, which does not hold any active offer and is not available for the customers to buy, is a standard inventory. The pessimistic aspect of this Stranded inventory is that Amazon will continue to charge for your Stranded inventory even when your stock is not available for sale. It will also affect your inventory performance and will also end up impacting your inventory performance index negatively.
Inventory performance index is a system of giving a score from 0 to 1000 to ensure that the amazon sellers are optimizing and managing their inventory properly. So managing inventory is important in e-commerce business and avert your unnecessary expenses.
Reasons for Stranded Inventory
Closing or deleting a product listing
After selling out from your inventory, if you have deleted your listing from your seller central account on Amazon. Your stock would eventually won’t be available for an active offer and end up being stranded. Listing a product means preparing a page on Amazon which has all the relevant information and details about your product that needs to be sold. If you have deleted or closed the listing, then relist the product on Amazon.
Suspended Listing
Amazon suspension of listing means the violation of the conditions stated on the terms and condition section. It has three stages, the first stage is when you have not violated any severe condition. Second stage is denied and the last stage is banned.
A suspended listing on Amazon is the listing with the:
- Missing information which is required to be filled and uploaded.
- Frequency of return of a product was high.
To avoid suspension of your Amazon listing:
- Fill all the information accurately.
You can write Plan Of Action (POA) to Amazon and state the actions you will take or take to resolve the issue.
Strong your customer service.
Listing Error
Listing error arises when the product you have listed is not connected by an active ASIN. It may occur if you have mistakenly deleted or your listing is deleted by any competitor. For fixing this listing error you have to relist the product in case of accidental deletion of listing or you have to contact seller support.
Pricing Error
Amazon has certain standards for pricing, so it may consider or deem your price as too low or too high. After which it may censor your listing. To fix this problem you just have to check your Manage Inventory section and fill your minimum and maximum price.
Brand qualification required
Some of the listed products on Amazon of a certain brand or ASIN require approval prior to selling it. The required approval may directly come from the certain brand or in case it has an authorised distributor, an invoice is needed.
Restricted ASIN
This issue is occurs when Amazon itself restrict the sale of a certain product, due to
- Bad quality
Additional safety testing is not done
Violations of intellectual property
It can also occur for more reasons other than listed so try to contact your seller support to know the reason and way to resolve it.
Expired product
There were certain products on Amazon which expired like perishable products, painting colours, cosmetics, etc. These have an expiry date, sale of these products before expiry date is important. As after it attains the duration of expiry, Amazon will stranded your product. For this you just need to remove your expired products from the Amazon warehouse. The other way to resolve this issue is to write an accurate Plan Of Action (POA).
Bulk Upload Template Error
There is a bulk template upload file, which makes it easy to transform data from reports on Amazon. If you have too much data on the quantity section, then your listing will transform into Fulfilled by Merchant. This will change your inventory into stranded. Change your listing from Fulfilled by Merchant to Fulfilled by Amazon.
Fixing the issue of stranded inventory
Before fixing the Stranded inventory issue, you need to determine the issue that causes your inventory to change into Stranded inventory. It either can happen because of the mistakes done by you, your competitor or Amazon has itself censored your product for selling. After you get to know the reason, you can fix it according to that.
If you have stranded inventory go to the Manage inventory page and see if the link of a Fix Stranded inventory appeared on the top, if that appears that means you have a stranded inventory.
To fix this standard inventory issue either:
Change it to Fulfilled by Amazon from Fulfilled by Merchant.
Relist your product by clicking on Relist.
Complete or create your listing.
Mention minimum and maximum price in Manage Inventory.
If you want to remove a listing from Amazon then go to Create Removal Order.
Be always have the permission of an approved merchant before selling a product of a particular brand.
Do not sell your product higher than the maximum price stated.
Do not use any unauthorised company’s trademark or logo on the product description page.
Always update your product details.
If you have stranded inventory in large quantities then go to Bulk Fix Stranded Inventory to resolve the issue in bulk.