Sharing this so others don’t go through what we did. This happened in the UK market, and it’s especially important for anyone doing seasonal selling here or selling seasonal items in Q4.
We did everything right.
Launched our Halloween products well before the season.
Sent inventory weeks in advance.
Made sure everything was active and set up properly.
We were ranked on top keywords, and everything looked set for a strong season.
Then it all went wrong.
Around 50% of our stock was in FC Processing right before peak time.
I wasn’t too worried at first, normally Amazon fixes that in a few days.
When I checked the Inventory Ledger Report, my stock was showing as received and stored in different warehouses, so I thought it would automatically go active soon.
Days passed, Halloween got closer, and the stock was still stuck in FC Processing. By 22 October, we went completely OOS.
I opened a case with Amazon, and what I found out honestly shocked me.
The stock was stored in warehouses that don’t actually ship to customers, they only hold inventory and transfer it to active fulfillment centers based on Amazon’s internal demand algorithm.
That transfer never happened in time.
From 22 to 31 October, half of our inventory just sat there doing nothing.
We were ranked on top keywords, demand was high, and our listings were OOS.
On this client account, we ended up losing around £20,000 worth of inventory sitting idle, not even sold and now we’ll be paying storage fees on top of it.
To make it worse, even if you’re not completely OOS, sometimes your delivery dates can show too long, for example, after the actual event or season, simply because your stock is stored in these same non-shipping warehouses. When that happens, customers don’t order, and you lose your season even though everything is fine from your side.
When I researched more on seller forums, I found another seller who lost about £100,000 worth of inventory because of the same issue. (Their story screenshot are attached below.)
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
If you sell seasonal or fast-moving products in the UK (dont know if this same issue is in US as well or not)
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Go to your Inventory Ledger Report.
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Search your ASIN and scroll all the way to the right.
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Under the Location tab, check where your stock is stored.
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If you see your stock stored in locations like UKK1, XLB2, XLH4, DSA2, XBH6, or XLH3, that means it’s sitting in a storage-only warehouse and not shipping directly to customers. (Screenshot Attached)
If that’s the case, open a case with Amazon early and request them to move your stock to an FBA-eligible warehouse before your season hit you in peak days.
This small thing can completely ruin your season if you don’t catch it early.
We learned it the hard way, lost £20k worth of inventory sitting idle on one of our client accounts just because of this.
Please learn from our mistake and make sure your stock is actually available when it matters most.
