Problems and solutions for US Amazon's out-of-stock issues during peak season

During Amazon's peak season, the sharp increase in sales volume may cause a shortage of product supply for many sellers, leading to out-of-stock situations. This not only affects the seller's sales performance but may also have a significant impact on the operation of the store. Therefore, how to avoid out-of-stock situations during the peak season, and how to remedy it in time when out-of-stock occurs, are important issues that sellers need to pay attention to and solve.

Ⅰ. The Impact of out-of-stock

Amazon has a seller rating system, and customers prefer to buy products from high-rated sellers. The Amazon seller rating system is related to delivery time (whether it is delivered on time), order cancellation (customer cancels the order), customer service response time (the time it takes for customer service to respond to customer messages), negative feedback rate (bad reviews), customer chargebacks, and AZ claims (customers initiate refunds based on Amazon's AZ guarantee). Therefore, out-of-stock during the peak season can lead to customer order cancellations, high negative feedback rates, and other issues, severely affecting the Amazon seller’s rating.

In addition to the seller rating system, Amazon also has a product ranking system, and customers generally prefer to buy products that are ranked higher. Amazon product ranking is related to historical sales, recent sales, seller feedback, product pricing, keywords, product reviews, etc. out-of-stock during the peak season can lead to no increase in sales, customers writing bad reviews on the product page, and other issues, severely affecting the Amazon product ranking.

Both of these situations will affect the overall sales of Amazon sellers, so it is important to resolve out-of-stock in a timely manner.

Ⅱ. Causes of out-of-stock

1.Insufficient Stocking: Many sellers are too conservative when stocking up, or their sales forecasts are inaccurate, resulting in product inventory that cannot meet sales demand.

2.Logistics Delays: During the peak season, logistics providers may encounter uncontrollable factors, such as port congestion, traffic jams, FBA warehouse bursting, delays, etc., causing products to be unable to reach Amazon warehouses in time.

3.Sales Speed Too Fast: The speed of product sales on Amazon exceeds expectations, causing inventory to be consumed quickly.

Ⅲ. Solutions to Prevent out-of-stock

1.Stock Up in Advance: Before the peak season arrives, sellers need to stock up in advance. The amount of stock can be determined based on sales forecasts. Generally, it is recommended to have enough stock for a month’s sales. Experienced sellers will have two months’ worth of stock, one month in the FBA warehouse, and one month’s stock being produced at the factory or floating at sea in domestic warehouses.

2.Multi-Channel Shipping: To reduce logistics risks, sellers can adopt multi-channel shipping methods. For example, using sea freight, air freight, and express delivery at the same time to ship goods, this can avoid the impact of single-channel problems on overall operations.

3.Adjust Pricing Strategy: When inventory is tight, sellers can reduce sales speed by adjusting pricing strategies. For example, appropriately raising prices or setting cancellations of promotions, discounts, etc., to slow down the buying speed of consumers. However, raising prices will lower the ranking, and if the price increase is too large, orders will be lost, so you can only increase the price by 1 dollar every 1-2 days.

Ⅳ. Remedies for out-of-stock

1.Quick Replenishment: If the product is already out of stock, the seller needs to replenish it as soon as possible. You can choose to use express delivery or air freight for emergency replenishment. Use air freight, regular Amazon shipments, and general shipping to ship together, to minimize the impact and transportation cost of out-of-stock.

2.Adjust Pricing Strategy: During the replenishment period, sellers can increase product sales volume by lowering prices and other pricing strategies, pull up the ranking and stop selling, to replenish inventory as soon as possible. When the air freight arrives, resume sales, the ranking has not dropped much, and the loss is minimized.

3.FBM Follows Its Own Sales: Before the stockout, use FBM to follow your own sales, set the price a little higher than FBA, avoid grabbing FBA’s shopping cart, in case an order comes out, wait for the goods to arrive and then use multi-channel shipping. (Not recommended)

4.Overseas Warehouse Transit: In the Amazon peak season from October to December, the storage fee is three times that of the off-season. You can consider overseas warehouse transit, prepare a part of the goods to the overseas warehouse in advance, which can largely avoid the situation of out-of-stock. Niuku International’s 11 major overseas warehouses support overseas warehouse transit services, with a warehouse usage area of over 600,000 square feet.

Preventing out-of-stock and remedying out-of-stock are important issues that sellers need to pay attention to during the Amazon peak season. Through measures such as stocking up in advance, multi-channel shipping, and adjusting pricing strategies, the impact of out-of-stock can be minimized.

Transit through overseas warehouses can effectively reduce the risk of out-of-stock. When a out-of-stock occurs, sellers need to take measures such as quick replenishment, adjusting pricing strategies, and contacting buyers to resolve the stockout problem and restore the normal operation of the store as soon as possible. Niuku International’s sea and air freight are stable and safe, providing protection for your goods. For more details, you can contact the customer service of Niuku International.