What is Unfulfillable Inventory? Unfulfillable Inventory Review

Unfulfillable inventory refers to inventory products sent by Amazon sellers to FBA that are damaged for any reason. In this case, the product will be classified as Unfulfillable inventory by FBA inventory.

The cause of Unfulfillable

1. Product damage caused by FBA header

Amazon FBA warehouse will conduct unpacking inspection after receiving the FBA products sent by the seller. Because during the first leg of FBA transportation, the products may be affected by external factors and may be damaged to varying degrees. If only the label of the product is damaged, Amazon can re-label it (for a fee) and sort it out before entering the FBA warehouse; but if the outer packaging of the product is damaged, deformed, or the product has quality problems, Amazon will classify it as an Unfulfillable product and will not allow it to be put on the shelves for sale.

2. Amazon’s improper operation caused damage to the product

One situation is that Amazon damages the product when receiving the seller's FBA goods into the warehouse, and the other is that the product is damaged when operating the FBA order delivery. If the seller has unfulfillable product inventory due to Amazon's own reasons, Amazon will compensate the seller.

3. Product damage caused by the buyer

After the FBA products are shipped, the buyer receives the goods and may request a return because of dissatisfaction with the product or personal reasons. Amazon will agree to return the product to the FBA warehouse. In the process of sellers receiving and returning the products, it is also easy to cause damage to the products, thus generating unfulfillable products.

4. Product’s own reasons

As time goes by, the product itself exceeds its service life. Or the product cannot adapt to environmental changes, resulting in a shortened lifespan, some functions decline or become unresponsive, and can no longer meet the needs of consumers, and is classified as an Unfulfillable product by Amazon.

5. Listing Reasons

If a listing encounters infringement complaints or quality complaints during the sales process, the listing will be blocked and the inventory in the FBA warehouse will become unsaleable.

If a product accidentally violates the sales policy or other reasons, the listing will be directly deleted by the platform, and the original inventory will become unsaleable inventory.

How to deal with unfulfillable inventory

1. For defective products with small quantity, low value and cannot be resold, you can choose to destroy them directly.

2. For products with high value and good quality.

a. It can be removed to overseas warehouses, relabeled, and delivered to other platforms

b. You can send this small amount of inventory to internet celebrities or writers for off-site promotion

3. For a large amount of unsaleable inventory.

If there is no problem with the product quality, it can be relabeled by a third-party overseas warehouse and shipped to the Amazon warehouse for resale, and sales on other platforms can be considered.

Removal and destruction charges

1. Dispose: Standard size 0.15USD/Unit; Oversize 0.3USD/Unit.

2. Removal (Ship To Address): Standard size 0.5USD/Unit; Oversize 0.6USD/Unit.

(Note: Standard size refers to a volume of less than 20 pounds and a size of less than 18*8*14 inches. Anything larger than that is considered oversized).

Removal and destruction process

Regarding the operation process, sellers can open Inventory Amazon Fulfills (FBA inventory management page), click on the unfulfillable inventory number of a certain product, and a prompt box will pop up for the seller to choose whether to remove this unsaleable product (unfulfillable item) or remove all unsaleable products (ALL Unfulfillable Inventory). After confirming, click Submit. After the page jumps, enter the Method of Removal option, which has two options: Remove (Ship To Address) and Destroy (Dispose).

1. Operational procedures for removing unfulfillable products

Since Amazon only supports returning unfulfillable products to local addresses, sellers must select the storage location of unfulfillable products in advance (it can be an overseas warehouse or other storage address), and then create a removal (Ship To Address) order to move the product out of the FBA warehouse.

In the Ship To Address order, you need to fill in the recipient's name, phone number, local address, and the number of unfulfillable products to be removed. Click Continue when you are done. Amazon will then automatically generate an Order ID, and it will be noted that it will take 10-14 working days to remove this inventory order. After the seller confirms that everything is correct, click "Place Order" to complete the removal.

In fact, sellers do not need to wait 10-14 working days, Amazon will generally process it within 2-3 working days. At the same time, sellers can use this Order ID to check the removal status.

2. Operational procedures for destroying unfulfillable products

1. Click the red number under the unfulfillable category, and Create a removal order for: This Item/All Unfulfillable Inventory will appear. Remove the unfulfillable items under this product, or remove the unfulfillable items of all products. Select one of the options and then click SUBMITE.

2. After clicking SUBMITE, the above page will appear. Click Destroy in the Method of Removal option. You don’t need to fill in the address for destruction yourself. Amazon has its own destruction center. Then select the quantity to be destroyed in Unfulfillable Qty and click CONTINUE.

3. The system will then provide the seller with the corresponding Order ID. After the seller confirms that it is correct, click "Place Order" to complete the destruction operation.

Unfulfillable inventory return

If you think these items are of high value and want to return them to China, you must first contact your freight forwarder and confirm the relevant information about the return with them, or you may have relatives or friends in the country of this sales site or a local overseas warehousing service company that can accept return services (because Amazon can only return to the address of this site's home country). Then ask them to help you send it back to China, which is equivalent to domestic overseas shopping. Of course, if the goods are not damaged and can be sold for a second time, the cost of sending them back to China is also very high.

The specific steps are similar to the destruction steps. The only difference is that you need to fill in the address in the shipping to address. This address is the address of your freight forwarder or overseas warehouse company or relatives and friends in the country where your sales site is located. Then select the quantity, click CONTINUE, and then Place Order. The return operation is completed. Amazon charges $0.5 per order for the above Removal Order. Remember this Order ID, find this order in the order list, and there will be a transfer order number (it will take a few days to get the transfer order number, and the order may also be cancelled, so please note). Your freight forwarder or overseas warehouse company may need this to receive the goods.