🚨 ATTENTION: Amazon FBA Sellers 🚨

If you rely on AWD to send inventory into FBA warehouses, this post is going to hurt your soul.

❓ Amazon is experiencing an unprecedented level of congestion within its Western Cross-Dock (IXD) and Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) facilities.

How bad is the congestion?

This bad: ➡ All IXDs and AWD facilities on the West Coast are at full capacity, with no further room for backup inventory.

This has HUGE implications for your Q4 plans.

👉 Amazon's Response:

Certain Amazon facilities have temporarily suspended the acceptance of inbound shipments.

💵 Incentivized Eastern Shipment: Amazon has reduced the inbound placement service fee by $0.05 per unit for shipments directed to the East region, aiming to redistribute inventory load. This carrot should be MUCH, MUCH bigger IMO.

⌛ Extended Shipment Management: For shipments initiated between August 7 and October 31, the closure window has been extended to 90 days, and the abandonment window to 45 days.

😡 The Big WHY: The congestion primarily originates from the inefficiencies in Amazon's cross-dock network, where the distribution from national and regional cross-docks to fulfillment centers has been severely delayed, potentially adding weeks to standard inbound times.

💡 Strategic Considerations: I've said this before and I'll say it again. You need to have what I call "emergency inventory" at 3PL locations on both the West and East costs. This is a perfect example of why they're so important to maintaining healthy stock levels at Amazon.

AWD just screwed sellers. Amazon pitched AWD as the "promised land" and now it's turning into a nightmare for millions of sellers.

Who could have seen this coming?

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P.S.

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