Restock Inventory

The Restock Inventory tool provides recommendations on products to restock, suggested replenishment quantities, and ship dates. It helps you keep track of your inventory so that you can maximize sales by meeting product demand while avoiding overstocking. You can customize your recommendations by configuring your inputs, such as lead time and case pack quantities.

Frequently asked questions

How does Amazon generate restock recommendations?

One of the keys to good inventory management is keeping the right amount of inventory in stock. This can be challenging, because the “right amount” varies based on future demand and the cost of carrying too much or too little inventory.

To help you overcome these challenges, Amazon has developed a sophisticated optimization model that calculates a suggested replenishment quantity, and ship date for your products.

The quantity and date recommendations take into account your variable costs, expected revenue, and estimated future demand. The recommendations are intended to provide you with information you can use to balance the cost of running out of stock (lost sales) vs. the cost of carrying too much inventory (capital costs and storage fees) to help you get the highest return on your inventory investment.

Keep in mind that the model relies on your inputs and leverages an estimate of future demand, which is uncertain. It’s always your decision whether to follow the guidance, and following the recommendations may or may not lower your costs.

How do I create a shipment from the Restock Inventory page?

You can create a shipment by selecting the SKU, clicking the arrow on View details, and selecting Create shipping plan. To create a shipping plan for multiple SKUs, check the box to the left of each SKU in question. Next, click Action on and select Create shipping plan.

What is the color bar in the Days of Supply column?

The color bar displays an Inventory Level Monitor. The monitor is divided into five zones. If your unit count for the FNSKU is in the green zone, your inventory levels are within the recommended range to provide more one-day deliveries to Prime customers. If your unit count for the FNSKU is in the red or yellow zones, your FNSKU currently has too much or too little inventory. The zone thresholds are calculated a month in advance.

Note that not all products show an Inventory Level Monitor. We are always working to expand the number of products that show an Inventory Level Monitor.

Why is a restock recommendation not available for some of my products?

We’re always working to expand the number of products for which we have recommendations, but some products are not yet eligible for inclusion. We also currently provide recommendations only for your FBA inventory with a “new” offer type.

How do I adjust my restock settings?

You can fine-tune your restock recommendations by adjusting product-level inputs such as supplier lead time and replenishment frequency. To update these settings, click View details for a product to be taken to the SKU Details page. You can also configure your settings in bulk by clicking Product settings at the top right of the Restock Inventory page.

On the “Configure SKU settings” page, why is an alert sometimes displayed at the bottom of the page?

This will alert you to certain conditions that may affect the relevance of your recommendations, such as:

You do not have the lowest-price offer.

This alert displays when there are multiple sellers with offers on a given product and you do not have the current lowest offering price.

How can I provide feedback about the recommendations or the Restock Inventory feature?

We welcome your feedback to help us improve our inventory management tools. Send any feedback by using the Feedback button on the bottom of the Restock Inventory pages, or provide feedback on specific recommendations using the Improve recommendations link in the Action column.

I'd prefer to keep my supplier’s name private. Do I have to enter the supplier’s name?

No. You can enter a nickname or code to represent your suppliers. Doing this will not change the quality of your restock recommendations.

How do I flag ASINs as not replenishable?

You can indicate that a SKU is not replenishable on the Restock Inventory page by clicking View details in the Action column and selecting Hide recommendation. Hiding all SKUs associated with an ASIN will exclude the ASIN from your FBA in-stock rate and estimated FBA lost sales.

Note that hiding replenishable SKUs is not an effective way to increase your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score for the following reasons:

• Hiding SKUs does not directly change your IPI score.
• The SKUs you hide will no longer display restock recommendations.
• Inaccurate FBA inventory settings may cause you to miss valuable restock opportunities.

Glossary

Days of supply

The estimated number of days your current inventory supply will last based on the projected demand for your product.

Estimated shipment value amount

The estimated value of the inventory you are restocking for a particular product from your supplier. It’s calculated by multiplying your recommended replenishment quantity with your cost of purchase.

Low stock

This alert identifies items where the days of supply is less than the lead time, which indicates that replenishment shipments may need to be expedited in order to avoid going out of stock.

Out of stock

This alert is shown for items that are no longer in inventory.

Recommended ship date

The suggested date to ship the product to avoid a low- or out-of-stock scenario, based on your estimated days of supply and lead time.

Recommended replenishment quantity

The recommendation for the number of units to be restocked for FBA.

Restock inputs

Enter values in these fields to fine-tune your recommendations for your business.

• Cost of purchase: The per-unit cost that you pay to order the specified product from your supplier.
• Per-unit variable costs: Additional per-unit cost that you pay, not including Amazon fees (for example, shipping cost per unit).
• Supply chain setting: Indicates how your supply chain is configured for the specified product so that the recommendation model can calculate the appropriate lead time.
  
  1. Supplier ships directly to Amazon: Indicates that the product is directly shipped from your supplier to Amazon. Selecting this supply chain type will cause the model to use only Supplier lead time when calculating recommendations. Enter value: 1.
  2. Supplier ships to your facility, then you forward the full shipment to Amazon: Indicates that the full order for the product is shipped from your supplier, then prepped before sending to Amazon. Selecting this will cause the model to use Supplier lead time plus Seller lead time when calculating recommendations. Enter value: 2.
  3. Supplier ships a bulk supply to your facility, then you replenish inventory to Amazon: Indicates that you typically store inventory for this product at your facility and replenish to Amazon directly from that facility. Selecting this will cause the model to use only Seller lead time when calculating recommendations. Enter value: 3.
• Seller lead time: Number of weeks needed for you to deliver a product from your facility to Amazon.
• Supplier lead time: The amount of time needed for your supplier to deliver a product to your facility.
• Replenishment frequency: The frequency at which you typically replenish the specified product.
• Case pack quantity: Also known as order multiple, this is the number of sellable units per case or carton ordered from your supplier.
• Minimum replenishment quantity: The minimum number of units that you send when restocking FBA inventory.

Sales (last 30 days)

The value for the total sales of this SKU in the last 30 days.