Inbound Performance Feedback

Since customers can't buy your products until they are received into a fulfillment center, it's critical to streamline the receiving process and eliminate any problems that could slow down getting your inventory from the loading dock to the customer. Familiarizing yourself with the packaging and prep and shipping requirements is the first step to making that happen (see Packaging and Prep Requirements and Shipping and Routing Requirements). Feedback from Amazon fulfillment centers can also help you refine your shipment process. Inbound Performance Feedback provides the visibility and guidance needed to improve shipments so they can be received with minimal delay.

How it works

When a fulfillment center receives a shipment from you, the units are scanned and placed in inventory for fulfillment. If during this process any Receiving Problems are found, we will send an e-mail notification, flag the problem within your Shipping Queue and specific Shipment Summary, and include the problem in the Inbound Performance Summary and Inbound Performance Report. Some of the receiving problems may require you to review and acknowledge them before we can receive more shipments from you.

E-mail notification

In the event of receiving problems, you will receive one e-mail notification for each shipment received at the fulfillment center for each type of problem. Example: Three of your shipments arrive at the fulfillment center on the same day and two of them have problems. The first shipment has five items with unscannable labels, which will generate one e-mail notification. The second shipment has one unscannable label and one unit that was missing a label; this shipment will generate two notifications--one for the unscannable label and one for the missing label.

The e-mail notification will include the shipment name and number and the date it was received. A link will open the shipping queue for you to review the details. E-mail notification is set on by default, but you can turn it off under Account Settings > Order Notifications > Inbound Shipment Problem Notification.

Shipping queue and shipment summary

The Shipping Queue shows the status of all of your shipments. Shipments that have errors will indicate Receiving w/Problems in red. A message will also appear under the shipment name that reads Problem(s) found that require your attention. Resolve Now.

You can view the problem details by either clicking the View & Trackbutton then clicking the Problem Summary tab or click the Resolve Now link and go directly to the tab. The Problem Summary tab provides a list of Merchant SKUs, the problems associated with them, and the quantity of units with problems, if applicable. Click the Resolve button to learn more about the problem.

In many cases, we will be able to resolve the problem with the shipment without you taking any action, but doing so will cause delays in receiving the inventory.

Depending on the severity of the issue, we may assess per-unit fees for the additional labor needed to make the units sellable.

Inbound performance summary

The Inbound Performance Summary provides an aggregated overview of all receipt-related problems identified with inbound shipments to Amazon fulfillment centers. Visit the Inbound Performance Summary help page for more information about how to read the summary, or go directly to the Inbound Performance Summary.

Inbound performance report

The Inbound Performance Report provides specific shipment level details of problems identified with inbound shipments to Amazon fulfillment centers. View the Inbound Performance Report for details of receiving problems for a particular shipment.

Inbound performance alerts

If you experience repeated problems with any of our requirements, Amazon may suspend your abilities to send certain products or general shipments to FBA until you have acknowledged the problem. Learn more about Inbound performance alerts.

Escalated Inbound Performance Feedback

If your product(s) arrive with significant problems related to any of our product restrictions or inventory requirements, the issue may be escalated by the operations team. Your ability to create and modify inbound shipment(s) will be temporarily suspended until you review and acknowledge the problem and learn how to avoid it in the future. In the case the operations team escalates the shipment, you will be required to schedule a call to review the problem with the operations team before your privileges can be reinstated.

Receiving problems

You have two options when sending your products to Amazon: (1) You can choose to commingle your eligible products by sending them to Amazon fulfillment centers with a scannable barcode (UPC, EAN, ISBN, etc.) or (2) for stickered, non-commingled products, items should be sent to Amazon fulfillment centers with an Amazon product label (also known as an X00-label) in order to be received and made sellable. Any products that require additional prep or labeling upon receipt at the Amazon fulfillment center will experience a delay and may be subject to charges for unplanned prep services. Please review the reasons below for more information about receiving problems:

Labeling Required—Amazon had to label your product for one of the following reasons:

• Barcode cannot be scanned: The physical barcode or product label cannot be scanned. This could be caused by improper label placement, printer quality issues, or label quality issues. See Labeled Inventory for more information.
• Barcode label missing: The product is missing either a physical barcode (UPC, EAN, etc.) or Amazon product label (X00-label) and requires labeling. See Labeled Inventory for more information.
• Unit mislabeled: The product label does not match the physical unit. See Labeled Inventory for more information.
• Barcode not accessible by scanner: The product label was placed in a location where it could not be easily scanned. Our fulfillment center had to re-label the product in order to receive it. See Labeled Inventory for more information.

Prep required—Amazon had to perform the required prep on your product in order to add it to your Sellable inventory:

• Bagging: The product needed to be placed in a polybag in order to protect it from dust and damage. See Packaging and Prep Requirements as well as Prep for Specific Categories for more information.
• Bubble wrapping: The product needed to be bubble wrapped in order to protect it from damage. See Packaging and Prep Requirements as well as Prep for Specific Categories for more information.
• Opaque bagging: The product is considered an adult product, needed to be placed in opaque bagging for privacy reasons. See Packaging Adult Products for more information.
• Taping: The product required taping in order to be received. Taping helps secure loose products, or products that are poly bagged, boxed, or bubble wrapped. See Packaging and Prep Requirements for more information.
• Suffocation warning: The product was in a poly bag with an opening of 5 inches or more and did not include a suffocation warning. See Poly bagged Units for more information.

Unit Quantity—The quantity for the products you sent was different than what was listed on your FBA shipment.

• Unexpected item found: One or more units were not listed on your FBA shipment. This issue could be caused by units that are sent, but not listed on the FBA shipment, or by units that are substitutions of those listed on the shipment (for example, blue t-shirts are listed on the shipment, but red t-shirts are sent instead). Amazon reserves the right to return the product, dispose of it at your expense or charge a fee for unexpected products within the shipment. See How to Ship Inventory to Amazon for more information about creating a shipment.
• Additional quantities encountered: You sent more units than were listed on your FBA shipment. To give you more flexibility, you can edit the shipment quantity to match the quantity received within the allowed range. This range is set according to your total shipment, or combined shipment volumes, and is currently set to allow you to edit shipment quantities by 5% or 6 units, whichever is greater. See How to Ship Inventory to Amazon for more information about creating a shipment. Any material changes larger than this range must be re-planned through Seller Central or you may be subject to Unplanned Placement Service fees. Visit the help page to learn about Changing Your Inventory Placement Option.

• Product or shipment sent to the wrong fulfillment center: Your shipment or product was sent to a different fulfillment center than listed in your shipment plan. If a product is sent to a fulfillment center other than what was assigned during shipment creation, that center may not be able to receive it. If a product is sent to any fulfillment center other than what was assigned, Amazon reserves the right to return the product, dispose of it at your expense, or charge a fee for unplanned placement services. See How to Ship Inventory to Amazon for more information about creating a shipment.
• Product damaged upon arrival: Your shipment or product(s) arrived in a damaged condition, and was unable to be received into your Sellable inventory. Make sure that you properly package both your individual units and your shipping boxes when shipping inventory to Amazon. See Packaging and Prep Requirements for more information on packaging individual units, and Shipping and Routing Requirements for more information on packing your shipping boxes.
• Distributed Inventory Placement issues—A quantity other than what was planned in Seller Central has arrived at Amazon fulfillment centers, or products from the planned shipment were not all received within 7 days of the arrival of your first shipment. In the shipment creation workflow, the planned quantity is the number that was originally shown after you clicked "Approve shipments." You can change this number +/-5% without needing to replan your shipment. If you are receiving this problem message, it means that the quantity received at the fulfillment center was different than the allowed range. Depending on the Distribution Inventory Placement issue, you will see the following notifications in your inbound performance report:
  • SELLER_SORT_OVERAGE
  • SELLER_SORT_UNDERAGE
  • SELLER_SORT_NO_SHIPMENT_SENT
  • Seller_Sort_Wrong DC
  • Seller_Sort_Not_On_PO

Escalated Inbound Performance Feedback: Amazon may temporarily suspend your ability to create and modify inbound FBA shipments due to repeated problems with our inbound requirements.

• Unit/Shipment Preparation Errors: This problem can be related to any of the above problem types, as well as any issues associated with the FBA Product Restrictions or any section within our Inventory Requirements. If your inbound performance does not improve based on the feedback from our fulfillment centers, we may suspend your shipment creation and modification privileges until we are able to speak with you about the issues through a scheduled phone call.