Amazon has informed sellers that it will no longer be receiving non-essential shipments of FBA inventory until 5 April. The move is an attempt to allow Amazon to focus on fulfilling products most needed by consumers during the Coronavirus pandemic including medical supplies and household products.
Amazon sent the following notification to sellers on Tuesday 17 March:
“Temporarily prioritizing products coming into our fulfillment centers
Dear seller,
We are closely monitoring the developments of COVID-19 and its impact on our customers, selling partners, and employees.
We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result some products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers.
For products other than these, we have temporarily disabled shipment creation. We are taking a similar approach with retail vendors.
This will be in effect today through April 5, 2020, and we will let you know once we resume regular operations. Shipments created before today will be received at fulfillment centers.
You can learn more about this on this Help page. Please note that Selling Partner Support does not have further guidance.
We understand this is a change to your business, and we did not take this decision lightly. We are working around the clock to increase capacity and yesterday announced that we are opening 100,000 new full- and part-time positions in our fulfillment centers across the US.
We appreciate your understanding as we prioritize the above products for our customers.
Thank you for your patience, and for participating in FBA.”
Amazon Sellers Using FBA Worldwide
Check out the graph below courtesy of Marketplace Pulse which shows the numbers of sellers worldwide using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
Seller Reaction
This will undoubtedly be a blow for many small FBA sellers during these uncertain times. You can keep up with the reaction of other third-party sellers by following this thread on Seller Central.
Remember, third-party sellers can still sell on Amazon during this time but must fulfill the orders themselves through Fulfilled by Merchant. Learn more about FBM.
You can also check out the video below which discusses the restriction.
