FBA has changed the way it determines inventory maximums three times since the start of the pandemic, leaving Amazon sellers scrambling to keep their most popular items in stock. Stockouts on Amazon damage performance across all listings on Amazon due to:
Missed sales opportunities: 48% of shoppers encountered an out-of-stock notification while holiday shopping. 38% of those shoppers said they simply purchased a similar product from an alternate vendor.
Loss of seller authority: Every moment that your listing is down, your sales velocity drops. In turn, SEO rankings drop and paid advertising performance declines. It can be difficult to ramp sales back up once the listing is active again.
The solution? Diversify your Amazon fulfillment strategy to include Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) as an FBA backup that can be activated when an FBA SKU goes out of stock.
Having a backup fulfillment method gives sellers the confidence to scale up their sales and marketing efforts without the risk of stockouts.