A summary of nearly 20 ways to clear inventory on Amazon

Amazon's storage fees have increased in recent years. In particular, for products with overstocked inventory and long-term unsalable goods, the platform will charge additional storage fees. Not only does it increase costs, but long-term unsalable goods will also affect the overall popularity of the store and the popularity ranking of other products. So in response to this problem, Dark Descent has summarized some methods for Amazon to clear inventory.

1. Clearing Outlet Inventory

2. Amazon Liquidation Auctions

Amazon and B-Stock, the largest online liquidation platform in the U.S., jointly launched the Amazon Clearance Auction B2B platform. This platform will sell Amazon sellers' customer returns and overstocked goods, including household goods, clothing, books, consumer electronics and groceries.

• The US site URL is: http://amazon.bstock.com

• The European site URL is: http://a2z.bstock.com

Currently, the US auction only accepts registrations from US corporate buyers, and the warehouses where the inventory is shipped out are in Arizona, California and Indiana. That is, corporate buyers will purchase related products, so even if sellers want to be on this platform, they have to see if their products are suitable.

3. Bundling or discount promotions

If there is not much goods and the products are not selling well, in order to save the high storage fees, you can choose a suitable promotion based on the products.

For items with small value, you can choose to buy one and get one free, or buy a related product and get this product for free. For items with high value, you can set a certain discount, or give away an item of low value as a bundled sale. This can also drive the sales of another product.

4. Request Amazon to destroy

For products with low inventory, low price and poor quality, you can directly create a removal order through the seller center background and apply for Amazon to destroy them. In this way, Amazon will charge a small removal fee and clear the inventory. Sellers can then focus on good products and create hot products.

Making good use of the “Create Removal Order” function is also a good idea. After all, the return shipping cost of some products is several times the price of the product.

5. Lighting Deal

According to consumer psychology, you need to create an atmosphere of "urgency" when promoting products, so that they feel that if they don't buy now, there will be no more discounts or the product will be gone. For example, you can specify the promotion time interval or countdown. Of course, this also depends on your product.

6. Participate in Best Deal

Darkness Falls recommends sellers to increase advertising, give away free products, and not require reviews, so that the ranking can move up during this period. For products with low value, sellers can consider buy one get one free, or buy this product and give away a certain product; for products with high value, set a discount, or give away a low-value product, which is conducive to driving the sales of another product. In addition, sellers should remember to maintain the same attentive service as always during the promotion period.

7. Liquidate inventory with the help of Amazon’s pilot program

8. Seize the buy box and clear inventory

9. Off-site promotion        

• Find influencers who sell deals: Post a solicitation, state your requirements, products and payment, and ask influencers to post on your behalf. Deals website editor: Go to the deals website and find the editor's name on the deals post. You can send a private message or click on his name to enter his ID to view his email and social networking site ID, send him an email or leave him a message or email on the social networking site; click advertise on XXX or contact us at the bottom of the website to find the editor.

• Post discounts in off-site FB celebrity groups: If the product has a certain audience, sellers can use social software to promote it. They can contact price-sensitive users on the platform and tell them: If you buy product A at the original price, leave a five-star review, and do not leave a review message in the review, you will get a product B worth XX for free (product B is a slow-moving product).

• Of course, you can also choose Amazon affiliate promoters to conduct the placement. They have a huge user network and the communication effect will be more positive. Such discounts will produce a "viral" spread effect more quickly, so as to quickly achieve the goal of clearing inventory.

10. Run a social media contest or giveaway

At present, off-site deals are the last straw for most sellers to clear their inventory. If your discount is big enough, the effect should be OK. Of course, it is not ruled out that your product is too unpopular and no one wants it even with the discount. Everyone is keen on finding celebrities, but ordinary celebrities have little effect. Unless the celebrity is really a Lei Feng, you can try it with little initial investment, but don't have too high expectations.

For a small number of products that are ready to be sold in the peak season but are still a little far from the peak season, you can first give them to bloggers to add sales permissions to the comments. Although this will not immediately see cash returns, sellers can gain a lot of word-of-mouth and comments, paving the way for brand building in advance, which is priceless.

11. Don’t adjust the price on the front page too low. It is best to sell at a low price by offering discounts. According to the experience of many sellers clearing inventory, the lower the price, the harder it is to sell. Of course, it also depends on the product.

12. Post second-hand product information on eBay and sell it at half price. Then distribute it through multiple channels through FBA.

13. If you have an Alibaba international account, place 5-10 batch orders. The price is relatively low. FBA can deliver through multiple channels.

14. If you are a European site, it is easy to do. There are many small discount websites in Europe. You can focus on the Czech Republic and Poland.

15. Send an email to customers who have purchased from you in the past, telling them that they can get a 50% discount if they repurchase from you.

In general, inventory clearance means using all available resources and doing all that can be done. Try to reduce costs to the minimum and get as much cash back as possible. If it really doesn't work, the only option left is to destroy it.

16. You can consider finding local offline wholesalers. If you have the resources, you can sell some of them at a discount, but you have to transfer them to a third-party warehouse, which is a bit troublesome. But this can recover a little bit of the loss, and if you sell them offline, it will also help the product brand.

17. All those who do promotions must pursue rankings, combine advertisements, and see if the data can be recovered. If not, going up in the rankings and making a little sales on the site can also recover some of the losses.

If sellers need to do off-site promotion but are not sure about the discount strength, they can first send the product link to Darkness Falling ( linyu2048 ) to take a look. We will recommend appropriate channels based on the listing situation and product type.

Because every product's page, listing content, VP, Feedback, pictures, etc. determine the conversion rate of in-site orders and will also affect buyers' purchasing desire to varying degrees.