It’s a scenario that strikes fear into the heart of every FBA seller: You’re preparing a large, crucial shipment to prevent a stockout of your bestseller, but when you go to create the shipping plan, a red banner appears: "Restock limits exceeded."
Amazon has cut your FBA storage capacity with little or no warning, and your entire supply chain has just hit a wall. This is not a time for panic; it is a time for swift, strategic action. This emergency guide will provide a checklist of immediate steps to take to manage the crisis and keep your products in stock.
1. First, Understand Why Your Limits Were Cut
Amazon's FBA restock limits are dynamic and are primarily driven by two factors:
- Your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) Score: This is a score from 0-1000 that measures how efficiently you are managing your FBA inventory. A score below the required threshold (typically 400) tells Amazon you have excess or slow-moving stock, and they will restrict your capacity. The IPI score is influenced by your FBA sell-through rate, excess inventory levels, and stranded inventory percentage.
- Overall Network Capacity: Even with a great IPI score, Amazon may reduce limits for all sellers to manage capacity in their fulfillment centers, especially in the months leading up to the peak Q4 season.
2. Your Immediate Action Plan (The First 48 Hours)
You have limited capacity, so your immediate goal is to free up as much space as possible and use it for your most valuable products.
- Step 1: Prioritize Your Best-Sellers. Triage your product catalog immediately. All of your limited FBA capacity must be allocated to your top-selling, highest-profit products. It is better to keep your top 20% of ASINs in stock than to have a thin layer of inventory across your whole catalog. You must be ruthless in this prioritization.
- Step 2: Free Up Capacity - Fast. You need to get slow-moving and unsellable inventory out of FBA to make room for your bestsellers.
- Create Removal Orders: Immediately create a removal order for any inventory that is aged (over 90 days with low sales), excess, or unfulfillable. Yes, this costs money, but the cost of stocking out of your top products is far higher.
- Run Aggressive Sales: For any overstocked products that are still selling, launch an aggressive sale, outlet deal, or promotion. Liquidating this stock quickly will improve your sell-through rate and free up capacity.
- Step 3: Clean Up "Phantom" Inventory. Check your "Restock Limits" monitor in the FBA dashboard. Sometimes, capacity is being held by old, un-deleted shipping plans. Make sure all old, closed, or cancelled shipping plans are fully deleted.
3. The Medium-Term Strategy: Creating a Safety Net
While you work on improving your IPI score, you need a way to keep your business running.
- The #1 Priority: Activate a 3PL Partner. A third-party logistics (3PL) warehouse is your essential safety net. If you don't have one, find one immediately. Your new supply chain will be: Factory -> Your 3PL -> FBA.
- "Drip-Feed" FBA from Your 3PL: Send your bulk inventory from your supplier directly to your 3PL for storage. Then, send smaller, more frequent replenishment shipments from your 3PL to FBA as your restock capacity becomes available. This turns your FBA inventory into a "just-in-time" system.
- Consider Fulfilled-by-Merchant (FBM): As a last resort to prevent a bestseller from stocking out completely, you can create a second, FBM offer on the same ASIN. This will allow you to continue selling while you wait for FBA capacity, but you will lose the Prime badge. Your 3PL can often handle these FBM orders for you.
4. The Long-Term Fix: Improve Your IPI Score
The only sustainable, long-term solution is to raise your IPI score above the threshold. This requires a disciplined approach to inventory management:
- Improve Sell-Through: Actively manage your inventory to ensure you are holding a lean, productive amount of stock relative to your sales.
- Reduce Excess Inventory: Regularly remove or liquidate slow-moving products.
- Fix Stranded Inventory: Always act immediately on any "Stranded Inventory" alerts.
A sudden cut to your FBA restock limits can bring your growth to a grinding halt. As a full-service agency with deep logistics expertise, Sitruna helps brands build resilient supply chains that combine FBA with a network of 3PL partners, ensuring you can navigate capacity limits and never miss a sale.
Useful Resources
Conclusion: From Crisis to Control
While a sudden cut to your restock limits feels like a crisis, it is a powerful catalyst to build a more professional and resilient supply chain. The ultimate solution for any scaling brand is a hybrid model that combines the sales velocity of FBA with the flexible storage of a 3PL partner. This turns a major vulnerability into a strategic strength.
Need to build an agile fulfillment strategy that can withstand FBA restock limits? Schedule a free discovery call with the Sitruna team at www.sitruna.com/meet to get started.
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