It’s almost spring! This is the perfect time of year to do a little spring cleaning of your Amazon FBA inventory.
Let me ask you a question. How often do you look at your inventory at Amazon? For most sellers, we don’t take a look all that often. Sure, we might look at our inventory levels and our sales, but how often do we really look at each item in our inventory? Here are a few “Spring Cleaning” ideas:
1. Reprice your really old items to sell as soon as possible.
2. Remove or destroy older items that will never sell.
3. Remove or destroy older items that are no longer profitable.
4. Delete your old inactive inventory items.
Before I break all these down and explain why I make these suggestions, let me tell you how I’m able to sort my inventory and see what items I’ve had at a FBA warehouse the longest.
Log in to Seller Central, hover over the Inventory tab and click Manage Inventory. The default settings will show you the newest items that you’re selling via FBA. To sort from the oldest to newest, just click on the little triangle next to the “Date Created” text. If you only have “Active” inventory selected in your filters, then this will show you the items you’ve been trying to sell the longest. When you are making your “Spring Cleaning” decisions, be sure to ignore any items that you constantly replenish.
Ok, now that you know how to sort your inventory to see what items you’ve been selling on Amazon the longest, let’s break down why you should clean up your inactive inventory.
1. Reprice your really old items to sell as soon as possible.
Many Amazon sellers look at the price of their items only one time: when they originally price them. As we all know, our items are never perfectly priced. Competition comes in from other sellers who seem to frequently lower the price. Not only that, but new products are added to the Amazon catalog every day, so not only do you have competition with other sellers, but your inventory item has competition from other similar items.
It’s always a good idea to take a look at the items that have been in your inventory the longest, and then price these items to sell quickly. Maybe that Keto cookbook was priced perfectly at $14.99 back in April of 2019, but today it looks like it’s selling for about $5.99. It looks like it’s time to reprice it at around $5.99. You’ve had that item in stock long enough, and based on Keepa data it doesn’t look like you’ll get your $14.99 price again. Reprice that book, get some capital back, and reinvest it in items that will bring back a good ROI much faster.
For more reading on repricing, check out my blog posts on how to manually reprice your inventory, the top 6 profit building repricing strategies, and why you should consider automating your repricing.
2. Remove or destroy older items that will never sell.
Go back again and take a look at your oldest inventory items. Unfortunately, some of these items might never ever sell. I say “might” because you never know, but there are a few things you can look at to see that the probability of certain items selling again is less than .01%. Here are items to potentially remove from your inventory:
A. Items that no longer have a sales rank.
That CD of ZZTop’s Greatest Hits might have had a sales rank in 2018 when you first bought it, but now it no longer registers a rank. If Amazon doesn’t even give it a sales rank, then it has not sold in a long, long, LONG time*.
B. Items that have a ridiculously high sales rank
There comes a point where it’s time to stop waiting for an item to sell. You’ve had the buy box for months and the item never sells. Maybe it’s a toy that was ranked 100,000 when you bought it at Target, but now it’s ranked over 1 million. Yes, there are over 6 million items in the whole Toys & Games category, but that’s still an incredibly high rank. Unless I’m the only seller for this item and there are no other product pages for this item, then I’m going to have it removed. Always check Keepa for sales rank history, but sometimes it’s just best to let go of the items with crazy high sales ranks.
*A note about sales rank: Amazon sometimes randomly does not assign a sales rank to some items, even though they might be selling often. No one is really sure why this is, but it happens. The best way to see if an item has sold lately is to check the product reviews. If it’s still getting recent reviews, then it’s probably still selling.
3. Remove or destroy older items that are no longer profitable.
Maybe when you purchased that hardback novel, it was selling for $11.99 on Amazon. But now the best prices from both FBA and MF (merchant fulfilled) are all at $3.99. Even if you sell the book at $3.99, you still won’t make a profit. You might even lose money if you sell it… so what do you do? Wait for the hundreds of other sellers to sell out at $3.99 and hope the price returns to $11.99? No. It’s time to let it go, create a removal order (to either have it returned to you or disposed of by Amazon), and move on.
4. Delete your old inactive inventory items.
Go through your inactive inventory (be sure the inactive radio button is the only one chosen) and delete anything that is sold out and over 6 months old. These are items you once had in stock, but have not had in stock for a very, very long time. The only reason you would need to keep these items is if you plan on getting them back in stock. Deleting your inactive inventory means you will get fewer “Customer Question” emails that waste your time asking you questions on items you aren’t even selling anymore. And if you happen to get a return for one of these deleted items, that inventory will just go into stranded inventory and you can fix the stranded listing when that happens.
An additional reason to delete old inactive inventory items is to protect yourself as a seller. At random times, Amazon will declare a particular item or brand as restricted. There are too many reasons to list why Amazon would suddenly restrict an item that it once sold hundreds of, but they do this sometimes with specific items and brands. If Amazon sees too many of these listings in your active or even your inactive inventory, they could potentially shut down your Amazon seller account.
I’ve heard on several occasions of Amazon sellers who had their account shut down because they had 4-5 items in their inactive inventory that were now restricted or recalled by the brand. It took the sellers months (not to mention a lot of pain and agony) to get their accounts reinstated. While this is an extreme situation that would only happen to a small amount of people, it’s still not worth risking your Amazon account.
Note: If you use Inventory Lab (IL) to organize, price, and list your Amazon inventory and you’re curious if deleting a listing on Amazon messes anything up in your IL account, then check out this IL support page for the complete answer. The short answer is that deleting a listing in Seller Central will remove the inventory from the Inventory page in IL, but it will not remove information from the Accounting pages or reports containing the item in IL.
I hope these Spring Cleaning ideas help you clean up your inventory so that you can spend more time and money on items that are profitable! Any other Spring Cleaning ideas? If so, feel free to share them in the comment section below.
*This post updated for 2020
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Thanks for the reminders. I decided to clear out 3300 old listings today. One thing I noticed was how many “reserved” items there were, and they were not current orders. My best guess is that they are items being shipped from warehouse to warehouse by Amazon to anticipate purchases.
Anyway, just a heads up that after deleting a few of those listings, I realized my mistake, and then started sorting by :inactive” and also sorting by “reserved”, then I would scroll through all 250 items on the page to make sure “available”, “Inbound”, and “reserved” all were “0”, THEN I will delete the page. I may have stranded 6 or items. oops.
Good addition, David!
Thais is just what I needed. My little bit of stuff was a jangled up mess. Now it’s clear, and I have entered and am sending today a box of books to FBA.
Thanks.
You’re welcome, Beth!
When we delete old inactive inventory, should we just do it from the Inactive Inventory view? Do we also need to archive old out of stock inventory in Manage FBA Inventory view?
Thanks!
I delete and remove it all in every way. I try to leave no trace. Also, the archive option is going to be soon phased out in the new Manage FBA Inventory Page. For many, it’s already phased out.
I am having a hard time understanding out to archive/delete old inventory items with any efficiency. I have a lot of one-off books and music. In “Manage Inventory”, if its Inactive, zeros in all columns (Available, Inbound, Unfulfillable, and Reserved), and isn’t in my pile waiting for me to make a shipment — then is the item safe to delete from inventory?
As long as you’re not planning on restocking the item soon, and the item hasn’t sold recently, then it’s pretty safe to delete it. Even if it has sold recently, the worst that can happen if that if it’s returned it will go into your unfulfillable inventory. So that’s not a big deal at all. So to answer your question, yes, it’s ok to delete your items in question.
Can you delete your archived listings or do they just stay there forever? Thanks!
It’s best to delete your items. Amazon is phasing out the “archive ” option and it’s not worth the time to archive them now and then have to spend more time deleting them later. Some sellers don’t even have the option to archive so that option will not be here for long.
Hello,
I usually sell one offs, like video games, that I usually create a new listing for each time I sell because condition is always varying. Should I just delete the listings that have been inactive for more than a year? Can I still sell these items if I come across them again?
Yes, even if you delete the listings for items you are no longer selling, you can still sell them again if you happen to come across them while sourcing. Deleting the listings is just telling Amazon that you no longer intend to carry them in stock… but if you change you mind in the future, that’s ok too as it will just create a new MSKU.
Jerry, there is no reason to create a new listing each time because condition varies. Use an existing listing and change the condition within the listing.
Thanks for the tips!! I sell many one off items too and my inactive listings are a mess!!! This is motivation to get it all cleaned up and simplified for ease of future maintenance.
Thanks for the reminder Stephen! I need to delete those old inactive listings, but my problem is, when I sort to find my oldest listings, a few of these have sold in the past month (just got a repricer going, so some pretty old stuff is selling). I’m afraid if I just select the older inactive listings and delete, I may have a return get stranded. But there’s no other way to go about it, is there?
Not that I know of… I would think, though, that it would be petty rare for this to be a regular occurrence. Most of the time, the oldest stock will be items you sold a long time ago, and not recently. If you do have an item get returned that you sold recently, then it would just go into your atranded inventory. Then you’d need to just create a removal order to send it back to you, then send it back to Amazon under a new MSKU. It should only set you back about $1 to do that – and is a best practive for all of your returns anyway.
Thanks so much for the reminder, Stephen — You are greatly appreciated for sharing these tips — Your posts are always timely and creative, yet down-to-earth. So happy I found you.
Hi Stephen, Thanks for all these great Spring cleaning tips. Was just thinking about getting out my Amazon broom, then I got your e-mail. I’m really feeling motivated now :o)
Get to sweeping! lol
Thanks for these reminders Stephen. I would love to clean up my listings to make the number more manageable but I’m confused by a couple of the statuses. Is there a particular reason to “Close” a listing if it’s Inactive but you think you may get more inventory to sell? Or should I just leave it Inactive? Also, when you “Delete” a listing on the “Manage Inventory” page, the SKU still appears on the “Manage FBA Inventory” page. Is there a way to also remove it from this page (ie, listings that were mistakenly added with the wrong SKU or items that I know I will never list again)?
I’m wondering the same thing. I bought some items in November on clearance and sold them, but don’t expect to restock them. They were “Inactive (Out of Stock)” so I just Closed the listings. Would it be better to delete them instead?
You can close them or delete them as doing either will be helpful. I delete the stuff I don’t plan on selling again and close the ones I plan on restocking sometime in the future.
Thanks for these great tips! I had no idea that my inactive inventory is weighing me down! Guess what I’m going to do this afternoon!
Very helpful info! Just a question, how do I delete inactive items?
Go into your inventory, click to view your inactive inventory, select the items you want to delete or close, then click on the option to delete or close.
I have never cared about inactive entries because 1) I could always sort as you described 2) I could always click on active or inactive for those respective views and 3) always felt comfortable with the inactive entries being inactive as I felt I could use them as placeholders, a kind of historical record, not just in case I get the item again but for some data point for similar products, including getting accurate AZ fees in the wild (this can be done from your phone easily). Imperfect I know but still another data point.
But now if I get rid of them that record will no longer be there.
So that leads me to ask: A) Is the IPI visible to customers? I would think not. So from that perspective should not matter. B) Are sellers penalized in any way for having a bad metric for “in-stock inventory”? I know it means a lower overall IPI but is that just an internal guide number for us, or does it impact in some genuine direct way?
I worry about this, too. Do we lose important data when we delete listings? Are my MSKUs gone forever?
If you worry about losing the data, just close the listings instead. Both closing and deleting them tell Amazon you don’t plan on restocking them.
Thanks, Stephen! I always wondered about the difference.
Solid, comprehensive info. Thanks so much!
Thank you Stephen! A quick question, if I have multiple listings for the same item (before I had inventory lab, I used to add more inventory as a separate entry every time I replaced it) Can I delete the extra listings that have 0 in stock or will that affect the same listing I have that has items in stock? Hope that makes sense. Thanks
You can delete those. That’s what I do.
Thanks Stephen-I was doing some “spring cleaning” before your blog and I am glad I was doing it right! I felt like I had made some bad purchases early on and you reminded me we all originally see money makers and then they slowly lose even break even value.
How long on average do you not touch your original price? I find the race to the bottom so frustrating.
I now use a repricer and set my minimum prices shortly after I send my inventory to Amazon. This helps me get sales faster, even if it’s a few pennies lower, and then I can reinvest that capital back into more inventory. If I wait too long to reprice, the price usually falls to where I can’t profit anymore. So I set up repricer settings asap. I use this repricer and it doubled my sales the first month I used it: https://www.fulltimefba.com/bqool
Thanks Stephen-I also use BQOOL (thanks to your link) and your idea of repricing immediately is genious!
Great article! I’ve been selling on AZ since 2014 and have never done spring cleaning. It was interesting to see how many items I sold for good money, that have since tanked in price. It was also interesting to see the items I sold for an average profit that are now selling for an amazing amount of money.
Thank you for spurring me on to cleaning up my AZ account!
Yes, it’s so interesting to see how things have changed since we last sold an item. Glad to help with the Spring cleaning! 🙂
Hi, love the podcast. If you want an idea for future topics I would be interested in hearing about how to ungate categories like toys and Motorola baby alarms. It looks like I have to set up an account with a wholesaler and get an invoice for ten items?
Thanks for the suggestions… here is one way to learn how to get ungated in toys: https://www.fulltimefba.com/toyapproval
What do you do with inventory that is inactive and older than 6 months but is also an item that you WOULD stock again if you could get your hands on the item? I have a number of things that seem to be available in a seasonal fashion but right now I’ve been OOS longer than 6 months. Any harm if I go ahead and just delete those ASINs and down the road come across the items to purchase again??
That’s totally up to you. I’m assuming if you haven’t found those items again in 6 months, then the likelihood of you finding them again are pretty rare. Personally, I’d delete them… but if you DO end up finding them again, then all you need to do is create a new SKU for that item when you list it and you’ll be able to send them in. No harm in deleting them and then adding those items to a new SKU in the future.
THANKS! I needed that reminder. Good quick info. Books Galore.