Amazon FBA: Where Is My Inventory?
Congrats! You finally sent your inventory into Amazon FBA, but where is it and when will it become available for purchase? In this guide, I will explore the path your FBA inventory takes starting from you and ending at the customer.
When inventory is sent into an FBA warehouse, the inventory must go through a few different stages before it is ready to be buyable and sent to the customer.
Stages of FBA Inventory
Available
This is inventory that is buyable/purchasable by customers. This inventory has been received/checked-in by Amazon and is immediately available.
Inbound
This is inventory that is currently on its way to an FBA warehouse. This inventory is not available for purchase and has not been received/checked in by Amazon.
Reserved
This is inventory that is stuck in reserved status due to multiple reasons. This inventory may be tied to a customer order in the process of being shipped between fulfillment centers or set aside at a fulfillment center for additional processing. These units will be subcategorized into one of three subcategories:
Customer Order – These units are used to fulfill customer orders (units that have already been sold/allocated).
FC Transfer – These units are being transferred from one fulfillment center to another in order to place the inventory closer to customers. Units in FC Transfer status are available for customers to buy, but customers are shown a future ship date if no other units are available for immediate fulfillment.
FC Processing – These units have been sidelined at the fulfillment center for additional processing, such as verification of item dimensions & weight or pending investigations.
Unfulfillable
This is inventory that has been received by Amazon but it is not in a sellable condition. There are many reasons of why inventory may become unfulfillable:
Defective – Inventory that does not look or function as described in the listing and is not visibly damaged such as a recalled product
Customer damaged – Inventory that was damaged by a customer
Distributor damaged – Inventory that was damaged by the seller, vendor, or distributor during receiving
Fulfillment Center damaged – Inventory that was damaged at an Amazon Fulfillment Center
Carrier damaged – Inventory that was damaged by a carrier during receiving, while in transit to the customer, or while in transit back to Amazon due to a return
Expired – Inventory that has passed its expiration date as described in Date/Lot
Researching
This is inventory that was either misplaced or damaged at the Amazon warehouse and is actively being confirmed at our fulfillment centers
Total
This is the total number of units among all categories for a given sku. This is the amount that Amazon uses against your FBA inventory total/stock limits.
Understanding and managing these stages will help you keep track of where your inventory is and when you may need to send in more before running out of stock.
If you would like to learn more about your FBA inventory, contact us!
