My Amazon Guy Amazon Shuts Down Inbound FBA Shipments - Activate MFN! #14
Amazon is pausing inbound FBA shipments until April 5. If your company is able to ship MFN (Merchant Fulfilled) we recommend duplicating skus to offer MFN as an option to customers. When your FBA stock runs out, MFN kicks in. We keep MFN pricing $1 higher so FBA runs out first.
This will maximize your sales during these volatile times. When many competitors stock out, you'll still be selling. If you are already active with MFN no action is needed. Or if your FBA stock has enough inventory to get to April, no action is required.
Additionally - I want to speak to the overall situation. Amazon is seeing extremely high volumes of sales right now. Most businesses are seeing record sales. Your business as well as Amazon are likely to see an increase in demand as consumers stay home and opt to buy online instead of going to a store. Amazon just announced hiring 100,000 workers to help at their facilities. We foresee an increase in demand for the foreseeable future, at least the next 2 months.
Hello from Fulfillment by Amazon,
We are closely monitoring the developments of COVID-19 and its impact on our customers, selling partners, and employees.
We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result some products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers.
For products other than these, we have temporarily disabled shipment creation. We are taking a similar approach with retail vendors.
This will be in effect today through April 5, 2020, and we will let you know once we resume regular operations. Shipments created before today will be received at fulfillment centers.
You can learn more about this on this Help page. Please note that Selling Partner Support does not have further guidance.
We understand this is a change to your business, and we did not take this decision lightly. We are working around the clock to increase capacity and yesterday announced that we are opening 100,000 new full- and part-time positions in our fulfillment centers across the US.
We appreciate your understanding as we prioritize the above products for our customers.
Thank you for your patience, and for participating in FBA.
The Fulfillment by Amazon team