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Seller Central
How to fix Amazon stranded inventory?
What is FBA stranded inventory?
If you have inventory stored in Amazon’s warehouse, but there’s no longer an active offer for the product, customers won’t be able to purchase that inventory. That’s stranded inventory.
The problem with this is that even if your inventory is inactive and unavailable for sale, Amazon will continue charging you monthly storage fees for that inventory.
Reasons why your FBA inventory may become stranded
Pricing error:
Amazon may deem your price too low or too high and suppress the listing. This issue is usually an easy fix by placing a minimum and maximum price in your manage inventory section.
Restricted ASIN:
This happens when Amazon has restricted the sale of an ASIN (potentially due to intellectual property violations, poor product quality, your product requires additional safety testing, etc.). Since it can happen for several reasons, you’ll most likely need to contact seller support for this one.
Suspended listing:
A suspended or suppressed listing may be caused by missing required information (e.g., images, bullet points, age requirements, etc.). Or your product may have received a high number of returns. There can be a variety of reasons for this as well.
Listing error:
A listing error is when your inventory is not connected to any active ASIN; for example, if items in your FBA shipment aren’t associated with an active listing or your listing has been deleted (either by accident or by a competitor). Most of the time, this is an easy fix. You relist the ASIN. Though, in some cases, you will need to contact seller support.
Brand qualification required:
This issue arises if the ASIN or brand you want to sell requires prior approval. You may need direct support from the brand to sell their products on Amazon or an invoice from an authorized distributor.
Expired product:
If you sell a grocery item that has recently expired, Amazon will move and mark the inventory as stranded. In this case, the list will need to be removed from the warehouse.
Closing or deleting a listing:
If you delete a listing from your seller account immediately after selling out of your inventory, any lost list or customer returns without an active offer will become stranded.
Bulk upload template error:
When filling out a bulk template upload file, if the quantity column is populated, your listings will change from Fulfilled by Amazon to Fulfilled by Merchant, which strands your inventory.
How to find and fix your FBA stranded inventory
While Amazon should notify you if and when your inventory becomes stranded, it is up to you as the seller to take action within 30 days of the notification.
This is why you shouldn’t rely on Amazon 100% to notify you of an issue with your inventory. It would be best to be proactive and frequently check for problems within your account.
Where to find your stranded inventory
To determine whether or not you have stranded inventory, go to Seller Central and hover over ‘Inventory.’ From there, select ‘Manage Inventory.’
You will see a ‘Fix stranded inventory’ section at the top if you have stranded inventory. You can also get to this by clicking ‘Inventory Dashboard.’
Once on the ‘Fix stranded inventory’ page, you’ll see all your stranded inventory and why it’s stranded.
As you can see from the above screenshot, the inventory is stranded because of a listing error. You will see a dropdown menu with options to handle the stranded list on the right-hand side.
The only immediate option we are shown for this particular error is to create a removal order. But we don’t want to remove this inventory from FBA; we would like to relist the inventory.
To figure out your next steps, hover over why the inventory is stranded to find out more information and instructions. In this case, we will hover over the ‘Listing error.’
You can see that Amazon is telling us to contact seller support to help troubleshoot the issue. Sometimes dealing with seller support can be frustrating, so be patient and respectful as you explain your situation.
How to submit a new case to Amazon’s Seller Support team
When submitting a new support case, you may find that Amazon’s support team will try to help you solve the problem before opening a new case.
But, if you do end up having to submit a case, these are the steps you need to take:
1. In the top right corner of Seller Central, click on ‘Help.
2. Next, at the bottom of the page, go to ‘Need more help?’ and click ‘Get Support.’
3. At the ‘What service can we help you with?’ section, click on ‘Selling on Amazon’ > ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’ > ‘Investigate Other FBA Issues’ > ‘Stranded Inventory or FBA No Listing Error.’
4. After clicking ‘Select Issue,’ enter your ASIN or FNSKU and click ‘Next.’
5. Here, it may tell you precisely what the issue is and how you can fix it! If this doesn’t solve your problem, click on ‘Need more Help with this issue? Contact Us.’
How to stop Amazon from destroying your stranded inventory automatically
In the ‘Fix stranded inventory’ dashboard, you will see an ‘Edit automatic-action settings.’
Here you will see two options.
The first is ‘Automatic fixes.’ Amazon will automatically relist stranded inventory for the following reasons:
Listing closed
Item Discontinued
Listing completed and Inventory error
FBA listing changed to Merchant fulfilled
Even if you ignore your inventory for 30 days, if any products are stranded for one of those four reasons, Amazon will automatically relist the ASINs, so the inventory is active again.
When contacting seller support, request to be transferred to the “Captive Team.” They’re usually based in the US and have a higher level of understanding regarding Amazon’s policies and resolving any issues you may be facing.
The second section — ‘Automatic removal’ — is the one you need to pay attention to. To start, hit the ‘Click here to review or edit automatic removal settings’ link.
If you check this setting within your seller account, you will see that Amazon has ‘Dispose of units’ set as the default setting for all these stranded inventory scenarios. (Click on ‘More details on each listed inventory issue to better understand what Amazon means for each.)
Make sure this doesn’t happen to you. Choose ‘Return units to me’ as your removal method if you want your inventory spared.
