The peak season is coming and the warehouse is bursting. Sellers should pay attention to inventory management

Amazon has many warehouses in major sites around the world. The cost of the first leg is closely related to the warehouse location assigned by the system. For example, the first leg costs of warehouses in the eastern and western United States are quite different. The popular warehouses of Amazon FBA warehouses in the United States have always been the first choice for sellers.

ONT8

ONT8 is known as Amazon's most popular warehouse because it is only an hour's drive from the Port of Los Angeles, which can save some of the first-leg logistics costs. Because it is a popular warehouse, it is often overstocked.

LGB8

It is less than 50 minutes’ drive from the Los Angeles warehouse. Basically, there have been margin calls every year since 2020. Compared with ONT8, the degree of margin calls is slightly better.

LAX9

It is one of Amazon's largest warehouses for distributing goods, and is a 50-minute drive from Los Angeles. However, during this year's Prime period, LAX9 was so overwhelmed that there were even more than ten hours of waiting time for unloading.

The above are just some examples. The nine major warehouses in the western United States will only become more popular during the peak season. Although Amazon will deploy manpower to ensure the normal operation of the warehouses, sellers who choose popular warehouses should not take chances.

Amazon's new regulations this year require that the carrier's PO accuracy rate must be above 95%, and the reservation list accuracy rate must not be less than 85%, otherwise the reservation account will be closed or frozen for 30 days. There have been quite a few UPS account leaks this year, and there are still a lot of goods piled up in overseas warehouses. You should also consider carefully when choosing a carrier.

Some sellers, once they see the peak season, do not predict how much stock they need to stock up, and do not care whether they will sell more or less, or whether there will be over-stocking or insufficient inventory. As soon as they see someone placing an order, they will blindly place orders for stock, which can easily lead to inventory backlogs.

Unexpected accidents in the logistics process cannot be predicted in advance, such as the sinking of a ship, drought in the riverbed, workers' strikes, etc., which will affect the backlog of goods in the warehouse.

Amazon has been reducing costs and increasing efficiency this year, and has become the e-commerce platform with the largest number of layoffs. When the peak season arrives, all major warehouses are short of staff, and the warehouses' ability to unload and put goods on the shelves has become limited.

1. Choose a reliable overseas warehouse

   
   

   Now Amazon's warehouse overflow problems frequently occur during the peak season, and worker strikes occur from time to time. Sellers can take a look at Amazon's AWD plan, which allows them to temporarily store goods in overseas warehouses and then send them to Amazon warehouses when needed.

   
   

2. Arrange delivery plan

   
   

   Sellers can decide the quantity and time of shipment based on their sales. They should also review the peak seasons and holidays in the past two years to analyze the factors that affect sales. They should also calculate information such as inventory, replenishment nodes, etc.

   
   

3. Amazon warehouse selection

   
   

   Amazon recently released a new feature that is quite good: recommended warehousing options and standard warehousing options. Generally, the recommended warehousing option will recommend less popular warehouses to relieve the pressure on Amazon's popular warehouses, and will also give some rebate subsidies because the less popular warehouses are farther away and the first-leg freight is more expensive.