Many sellers were puzzled on Wednesday after Amazon informed them it would be adding inventory to their Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) account.
Amazon said the inventory in its fulfillment centers had not been allocated to sellers' account "due to an error in one or more of your shipments to an Amazon fulfillment center."
But sellers who discussed the notification on threads such as
this one (and a thread on
Reddit) found it odd, to say the least.
Amazon didn't say it would assign items to the owners' accounts; rather, it said it would assign items to accounts it determined to be the owner of the unallocated inventory. "Between July 14 and July 30, you might start seeing items from past shipments being added back to your account," it said.
One seller wondered, "Is this inventory that's been sitting under a conveyor belt somewhere for the last 10 years? Should I expect a big blob of melted together CDs???"
Another seller who received the notice said they hadn't sold using FBA since 2017. "Like I've said before, with FBA it is like Hotel California. You can check out but you can never leave."
Could it be that Amazon did a massive house-cleaning of its Fulfillment Centers and found items it had no idea were there?
The following is the email sellers reported receiving:
Hello,
We are contacting you because we've identified you as the owner of inventory that had not been previously allocated to your account due to an error in one or more of your shipments to an Amazon fulfillment center.
On July 14, 2021, we will begin assigning items to accounts that we determine to be the owner of the unallocated inventory. Between July 14 and July 30, you might start seeing items from past shipments being added back to your account.
You have not been charged storage fees for items that were not previously assigned to your account. Once the inventory is assigned to your account, monthly storage fees will apply.
If you don't want to continue offering these items for sale, you can submit a request to remove them. We will waive the removal fee for these specific items until 11:59 p.m. August 27, 2021. Starting 12:00 a.m. August 28, you will be charged the standard removal fee to remove units that were assigned to you.
For more information, go to "Remove inventory from a fulfillment center"
To see inventory that was assigned to your account as part of this effort, download your Inventory Adjustments report after July 30 and filter by following the instructions below:
Read
the thread for the fulltext of the Amazon notification.
Some sellers were wary. It's probably advisable for all FBA sellers to make sure that inventory allocated to their account is authentic and inventory they sent to Amazon. (As it says above, the notice states sellers can check their Inventory Adjustments report after July 30.)
It's also a reminder to check your account to make sure you're paying storage fees for only the items you own - Amazon is giving sellers until the end of August to remove inventory it allocates to their account before it will begin charging storage fees.