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New Seller, how long does it take your FBA inventory to become Active/Available?
I’m a new Seller and have shipped several FBA shipments. Only 1 of my shipments actually shows Available/Active. I’m just looking for a realistic expectation as to how long until my inventory actually becomes available. Most of my FBA shipments are just sitting in Delivered status. Over 50% of Amazon’s sales are from sellers like us, sending in inventory, so I guess I expected it to be quicker.
12 replies
Seller_fsNHBXJZNVJpE
lol…nothing here happens quick and as a 3P seller you are borderline meaningless to Amazon. There are sellers here making hundreds of thousands of sales a year, or even a month and even for them the wheels don’t turn faster or better.
That being said, your items are sitting in a trailer somewhere, waiting to be unloaded and processed. This can take a few days, or a few weeks and in some cases lately, it’s been a few months. And that is if half of your inventory wasn’t lost or unaccounted for.
So strap yourself in a seat belt because you are going on a ride 
Seller_olet7eVOHxQZd
Welcome to selling FBA. We do not use it much. For our SPD (Small Package Delivery) we have seen packages delivered and fully received within a day or take a week. The only thing you can do to make the process move faster is have it prepped and ready to go on the shelf.
Seller_n4shC9EMd3XuA
That depends. what type of items are you selling.
With some of my FBA items this happens:
Other items I send to fulfillment, they get to the center, then Amazon ships them around to other fulfillment centers to stage them before offering them. That usually takes a week.
Seller_X9AxWaXfNnGAl
In the past several months, Amazon has started to allow items to be “Available” even before the shipment arrives, but the delivery date the customers see is 3 weeks or more out. That might help if you are the only offer or you offer is much lower priced than competitors, but most will not buy something that is that far out.
You might not be aware, but the pandemic is not over yet and because of that, there are still staffing shortages. Some because of layoffs, some because of illness, some even because of outbreaks at locations. As a result, even when shipments are delivered quickly, they often wait at Amazon for more than a week. Larger carriers, like UPS will deliver 1 or several trailers each day. Those will not necessarily get to the loading dock, but UPS will mark the entire contents as delivered. Amazon will get to them later, but once the trailer is at the dock, there will be 20-30 pallets full of boxes that will each need to be put on the dock before each can start to go through the check-in and receiving process. Some boxes might not even get opened as Amazon may re-route them to other warehouses.
You should set your expectations accordingly.
I see 3-4 weeks from pickup to being in stock on normal days right now.
That available indicator can be misleading.
Seller_spBEmM4GC9jW1
Depends on the time of the year, warehouse being shipped to. and many other factors like if you labeled them or are having Amazon do it, oversize, etc.
The best thing to do is adjust your expectations to match reality, because Amazon does not care about you or any other seller. It is a sociopathic greed machine, treat it accordingly.
Sellers are easily replaceable and only required a credit card and a pulse to be here. Keep that in mind when evaluating if Amazon cares about what a seller wants.
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
I’ve seen quite a range; from a book selling 22 hours after I dropped the box off at the UPS Store, to sitting for over 3 weeks before they touched it, then showing delivery dates a month out (although those usually get to normal times well before that long).
Lately, I would say it’s taking 3-5 weeks for my shipments to get fully onboard and available, or longer if UPS goes wonky (dropped off two boxes; one was delivered in 2 days, other bounced back and forth between UPS hubs for a week; took totally different routes. Can’t figure that out…)
Seller_YeUy4RHYZqXpA
pls i need guides. I’m a new seller here please and i will appreciate it if i can get guides and step on how to move in here. And i’m an international seller in Africa. I really want to succeed here.
Thanks.
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