Amazon told sellers who use its FBA fulfillment service it was making a change that would give them greater flexibility. But numerous sellers begged the company to reconsider.
An except of Thursday's announcement follows:
"In July 2020, we announced ASIN-level quantity limits for products that are stored in our fulfillment network. We made this change to ensure that we can receive and store products for all sellers who use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
"We've heard your feedback, and are continuously improving our policies and programs to better receive and store your products.
"Effective April 22, 2021, FBA products will no longer be subject to ASIN-level quantity limits. Instead, restock limits will be set at the storage-type level, offering you more flexibility in managing your shipments."
The announcement referenced changes Amazon announced in
July 2020, when it launched the ASIN-level quantity limits.
Some sellers reacting to Thursday's announcement said the change severely restricted the number of units they could send to Amazon fulfillment centers.
"With ASIN-level limits, our top items were limited at ~33k units max and ~24k units max respectively. Now, our total limit is around ~50k and must be shared across the rest of our catalog," one seller wrote. "With this change, we can no longer send full container load shipments for our most popular items."
Also distressing to sellers was the lack of notice, leaving them little time to prepare. Amazon posted the announcement on April 22, 2021 at 10:37 pm about a change that took effect that very day.
One seller, Boardgames4Us, said Amazon had introduced the change in Canada in early March, and while painting a dire picture, said it was important for sellers to take action sooner rather than later.
"This was already introduced for Amazon.ca in early March," the seller wrote. "Most sellers who complained on the Canadian forum were struck with about a 75% overage (yes, they needed to remove 75% of their current inventory before they could ship anything inbound)."
Update 4/27/2021: Marketplace Pulse calls this "the new normal" in a post
today. "It is now clear that Amazon is never going back to the virtually unlimited fulfillment service FBA used to be," Juozas Kaziukenas wrote. "The changes over the past twelve months that introduced quantity limits reiterate that FBA is intended for short-term supply."