Update: Credit for FBA low-inventory-level fees incurred during April 2024
As announced in December 2023, the FBA low-inventory-level fee will go into effect on April 1, 2024. This fee applies to products with consistently low levels of inventory relative to their unit sales, which is also referred to as your historical days of supply. Maintaining sufficient inventory levels allows Amazon to effectively distribute products across our fulfillment network, which improves shipping speeds for customers and helps drive more sales for you.
We have heard feedback from a number of sellers that they are still uncertain what the exact effect of this fee will be on their business. To help you better see how this affects your business in real time, we will provide a transition period during the month of April.
We will still charge the FBA low-inventory-level fees incurred between April 1 and April 30, but after the end of the month, we will credit your account for all low-inventory-level fees charged during this period. Our goal is for you to see the end-to-end experience, and understand how this may affect your business so you can further update your inventory management to maintain sufficient inventory levels, drive greater sales, and avoid the fee in the future.
How it will work
Starting April 1, the transition period will begin. You will still be charged the fee on eligible products shipped with historical days of supply below 28 days. Then, we will credit back any charged low-inventory-level fees for units shipped between April 1 and April 30. You can expect to see this credit in May.
Starting May 1, the fee will be charged without a credit back. You can avoid the fee by ensuring that either the long-term historical days of supply (last 90 days) or short-term historical days of supply (last 30 days) are above 28 days (4 weeks). April will give you an opportunity to understand if your current inventory management actions will effectively avoid the fee, or if there are adjustments you can make to avoid this fee so you're prepared going forward.
For more information on the low-inventory-level fee and what qualifies, go to Low-inventory-level fee.
Thank you for your continued partnership.
Seller_tzb0Adb4whsRu
This is absolutely ridiculous.
Sellers are trying to avoid long term storage fees, aged inventory fees, and maintain monthly storage fee costs.
Now we're being charged for low inventory fees. How in the heck are we suppose to find that "sweet spot" of inventory when sales vary from month to month?!?
FBA fulfillment centers are taking 2-3 months to even complete/check-in a shipment which makes it even harder for sellers to keep track of their inventory.
How about Amazon fix their part of these problems before making sellers pay for them.
Do the historical days include units that are inbound?
Looking forward to an answer :)
Seller_XJ5fPXK82lIHl
This fee needs to be done away with completely. There is no reason to have this fee when you are already charging us for placement fees.
The idea behind the "low inventory level fee" is that if you don't keep up with supply, Amazon may need to ship something from a warehouse in FL to a customer in CA because low inventory and units can't be spread around the US correctly.
However, with the new placement fees, Amazon is telling us where to ship our items based on historical data and consumer trends and we are now paying the burden of this. Then on the back end, when we don't keep up with 28+ days of supply we get hit with a fee.
Not only that, but some units are seasonal and do better certain times of the year which change the level of items needed in the warehouse. Of course Amazon isn't going to take this into account and the fees will keep on rolling in.
Nothing about any of this makes any sense other than to collect more fees. Mods can't even explain it.
Seller_FM4TuZBO1GUDh
This fee is a joke. It factors nothing into consideration like meltable products, sales surges, expiration products which can not sit in warehouses for months, supply chain issues and so much more. Then someone clueless to how amazon actually functions tied it to the parent asin. Really?
This is only going to allow knock off competitors like Temu to gain market share over amazon with their crazy low prices while amazon sellers will need to raise prices.
You will also see many brands pull out of FBA completely leaving less need for customers to have prime accounts.
Usually, I understand small fee increases as the economy dictates but this one is a joke. I hope Amazon continues to hear feedback on this and adjusts accordingly.
At least make it something realistic like 7 days of supply. Almost all of us can deal with that if we are buying direct from brands/wholesalers and have a steady supply. 28 days for some products means a crazy investment into one sku.
Seller_FM4TuZBO1GUDh
This is going to hurt them in the long run. Rising prices is not good when you have Temu and others chipping away. Wal-mart is slowly becoming a competitor to Amazon and is not ripping off sellers like this with asinine fees.
Seller_C9TzOxTwGSFUQ
How about stop with the shell game and just be very clear with the fees. But you don't want that. You want people to be clueless as to what there true operational cost is. As of three days ago I quit being an SCAMazon seller. There are only three people that make good money on Amazon, Chinese sellers. those with STOLEN merchandise. and the actual manufactures who have there listings on lock down and only do FBM.
[Moderator Edit: Removed inappropriate language]
Seller_ez4zOmd2trXR9
We have an ASIN that sells close to 30,000 units in May and June (peak) and 10,000 for March, but our inventory space only allows us about 10,000 units. We have another 30 ASINs as well. Will we be charged a low inventory fee if we're not allowed to send enough units to get over the 28-day setpoint?
Side Note: isn't the inbound placement fee supposed to be for the same reason as this fee? Seems like double dipping for the same reason.
Seller_vAO7vMjT4iuJn
This is getting truly ridiculous and I'm not a big complainer. It's not practical given the number of moving parts for us to get penalized in every which direction.
