MULTI-CHANNEL FULFILLMENT

Everything you need to know about MCF inbound and storage

Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) provides companies access to a world-class fulfillment network. Discover how to get the most out of MCF inbound and storage as an Amazon seller.

Overview

For MCF, inbound is the term for products that are incoming to an Amazon fulfillment center. Storage is the amount of Amazon fulfillment center capacity you can use. Lastly, your inventory is the products that are currently being stored in an Amazon fulfillment center.

Inbound and storage limits

Inbound limits
In order to make the Amazon fulfillment network efficient, Amazon inbound uses storage-type-level restock limits for products you send to a fulfillment center. The limits are based on your past and forecasted sales, and you can allocate the limits across your ASINs as you see fit. To see the maximum amount of each storage type you can ship, log in to Seller Central and go to the “Restock Limits monitor”. Then, you can check your “Maximum shipment quantity by storage type”. Learn more about storage-type-level restock limits.

Storage limits
Storage limits are determined by your Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score. The IPI score measures how well you manage your inventory, like keeping popular products in stock, sustaining healthy inventory levels, and addressing listing issues. If your IPI score reaches the threshold, you are eligible for unlimited storage. Use the “Inventory performance dashboard” in Seller Central to check your IPI score and see recommendations for how to improve it. Read more about the IPI score and how it relates to your inventory health below.

Competitive storage pricing

Your storage fees are based on the daily average volume for the space your inventory occupies in fulfillment centers starting at $0.75 per cubic foot. Get the full rate card for storage pricing here. When products have been stored in an Amazon fulfillment center for more than 365 days, long-term storage fees are applied in addition to monthly storage fees. Learn more about long-term storage fees.

Inventory

You can view your inventory levels by using the “Manage FBA Inventory” drop-down in Seller Central. The inventory categories are:

Available - Products are in-stock at the fulfillment center and ready to ship.
Inbound - Products are en-route to a fulfillment center, but still available to be fulfilled. However, shipping will be delayed until inventory is received.
Reserved - Products are tied to a customer order in the process of being shipped between fulfillment centers, or set aside at a fulfillment center for additional processing.
Unfulfillable - Products are not available to be fulfilled for reasons like being damaged or defective.
Researching - Products are misplaced or warehouse damaged and are actively being confirmed at the fulfillment center.

Another category for inventory is stranded inventory. Stranded inventory is product in a fulfillment center that does not have an active offer on Amazon. You can view the “Stranded Inventory” report in Seller Central which details how to fix the stranded inventory. If you use a product only for MCF and don’t want to sell it on Amazon, you can set the "Sell by" date into the future. Then, there will be no active offer for that product. Although this product will be marked as stranded inventory, it has no negative impact to your IPI score as long as you use the product for MCF.

Inventory health

Your IPI score shows how efficiently you are managing inventory to minimize your storage fees and improve your business. Your MCF volume can help you achieve or maintain an IPI score that qualifies for unlimited storage.

Here are four tips to improve your IPI score:

Reduce excess inventory - It’s recommended to store enough inventory to cover 30-60 days of your sales. Removing your overstock inventory will not only improve your IPI score, but will reduce your storage fees.
Improve your 90-day rolling sell-through - By consistently keeping the right balance of sold and on-hand inventory over 90 days, you can boost your IPI score.
Fix listing problems - Ensure that your inventory is sellable by fixing listings that are stranded.
Monitor in-stock inventory - Increase your sales and customer satisfaction by meeting demand and keeping your most popular items in stock.

Learn more about your IPI score.

Get started

Multi-Channel Fulfillment provides low cost and efficient fulfillment solutions for businesses of all sizes. If you are interested in how MCF can help your business grow, contact us.

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