If you sell on Amazon using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), there are a few things you should be doing to avoid uneccesary expenses. You also want to avoid receiving penalties or inventory storage restrictions from Amazon as they gradually tighten their policies.

Check for issues with FBA shipments

Regularly check the shipments you’ve sent to Amazon to make sure there were no issues reported by Amazon. To do this, go to Inventory > Manage FBA Shipments in side of Seller Central.

Keep Your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) Score High

To learn more about your IPI directly from Amazon, click here.

If your IPI drops below 350, Amazon will restrict the amount of inventory you can store in their fulfillment centers, and you may suddenly have to pay hefty inventory overage fees ($10 per cubic foot) for any inventory stored there above the amount to which they’ve restricted you.

To learn more about this new policy from Amazon, click here.

How to View Your IPI and Get Inventory Health Insights

To view your inventory performance, go to Inventory > Inventory Planning inside of Seller Central, and then click on the ‘Performance’ tab.

The Performance tab shows your inventory performance in 4 key areas:

1. Excess Inventory
2. Sell Through
3. Stranded Inventory
4. In-Stock Inventory

How to Improve Your IPI

1. Fix stranded inventory
   • Inventory > Manage Inventory > Fix Stranded Inventory
2. Remove unfulfillable inventory
   • Set up automated removals of unfulfillable inventory (Settings > Fulfillment by Amazon > Automated Unfulfillable Removal Settings)
3. Manage excess inventory – discount and sell or remove any excess units of inventory
4. Inventory Age – monitor your inventory age and make sure your inventory is selling through quickly enough
5. Restock inventory – make sure you’re not running out of stock

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