Amazon Inventory Performance Changes! Are Inventory Limits Eased?

Previously, due to the epidemic, the Japanese site, along with Europe and the United States, lowered the IPI threshold score to 450 points. The European site raised the IPI threshold score to 500 in July due to the worsening epidemic in the first half of the year. Sellers who fail to maintain a score above this within the specified time frame will be subject to the maximum storage capacity limit and may also incur inventory excess fees.

The adjustment of the European site was to deal with the warehouse capacity problem caused by the outbreak. Therefore, after the adjustment in July, many sellers were worried whether the US site, where the epidemic was also serious, would follow this strategy. Now, two months have passed since the adjustment of the European site, and the US site still maintains the adjustment score of last December, which is 450. The Japanese site actually did the opposite and lowered the IPI score line under heavy pressure to allow more goods to enter the FBA warehouse.

Although this is partly due to the fact that the epidemic in Japan is slightly better than in Europe and the United States, it is more due to the change in the overall strategy of the platform. Recently, sellers need to prepare goods for the year-end promotion Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday. Lifting the IPI restrictions can be more helpful for sellers to prepare goods, but it will undoubtedly put a lot of pressure on warehouses. Amazon must have made such a decision because it has high expectations for the performance of the Japanese site this year, so it can withstand pressure from all sides and lower the IPI score.

From this perspective, although there is no change in the IPI score of the US site for the time being, at least sellers on the US site do not have to worry too much about being held back by the IPI performance score before the peak season.

There is no bad news for IPI, but the limit on the delivery quantity still exists, and it is still difficult for sellers to replenish stocks during this peak season.

Even if you can keep your IPI performance score above the threshold and enjoy unlimited inventory capacity, you will still be limited by the number of shipments.

IPI inventory limits and delivery limits adopt the logic of whichever is lower takes effect. Even if you use some unconventional means to break through the delivery quantity limit, if the inventory quantity exceeds the IPI specified, there will still be an excess fee. The IPI score is determined by a combination of four indicators: the proportion of redundant inventory, the FBA sales rate, the proportion of inventory without sales information, and the Amazon logistics inventory rate. In short, maintaining good sales and saleable status of products can maintain a relatively good IPI score. Compared with the delivery quantity limit, the maintenance of IPI is relatively simple and solvable. Since the delivery quantity limit is automatically calculated by the background, sellers have less control. Although the official statement is to evaluate the quantity that can be shipped based on sales, there are still many sellers who report that they can ship a lot of products that are not selling well, but not many hot-selling products, so this backend algorithm is really not reliable.

The ultimate solution to the current delivery restrictions is still the AGL official logistics or sea freight + overseas warehouse model. Using AGL logistics can ensure that products can be sold while in transit, without affecting product listing and customer orders. The delivery time will be displayed on the front desk according to the estimated time to warehouse + delivery. In addition to self-delivery and follow-up sales, the overseas warehouse model can also use economic slow ships to send products and store them in overseas warehouses. As long as FBA can replenish stocks, local logistics will be used for replenishment, avoiding expensive international shipping, and the cost is much lower.

Even Amazon itself has recently launched the FBA satellite warehouse plan, hoping to get a share of the overseas logistics warehouse pie. It can be seen that this method is very feasible. Many sellers have chosen this model to solve the problem of difficult shipments during the peak season. Although it is still more expensive than direct shipments to FBA warehouses, the peak season is coming to the end of the year, and the most important sales season of the year cannot be missed due to the inability to ship goods.