Do you have items on Amazon that are not selling? Are you wondering what happens if your Amazon FBA item doesn’t sell? This can happen even to experienced sellers, so don’t feel too bad about it.
In this blog post, I will explain what will happen if you have Amazon FBA products that are not selling and the possible reasons behind them. You’ll also learn what you can do with your unsold items to make sure you won’t lose money that much money in the end.
Read until the end to find out how you can prevent having unsold items on Amazon to help ensure that your products will sell.
What Happens if your Amazon FBA Item Doesn’t Sell
It’s possible for an Amazon FBA seller to have a product that will not sell. Both experienced and seasoned sellers can face this problem. When this happens, you’ll be charged not only the monthly storage fees but also long-term storage fees.
Amazon charges stored inventory with two primary fees: Monthly Storage Fees and Long-Term Storage Fees. These storage fees are both reviewed each month.
Amazon FBA performs inventory clean-up on the 15th of every month. If you have inventory that’s been sitting in storage for over 365 days, you’ll be charged a long-term storage fee. These items are charged per cubic foot. The longer the inventory is stored in the Amazon warehouse, the higher the costs you incur.
Having unsold Amazon FBA inventory has negative impacts on your funds. The more inventory you have stored that is not selling, the more it will cost you. Paying monthly and long-term storage fees can eat into your profit.
On top of that, your sourcing money is tied up with your old inventory. When you have too many unsold items, you can expect the growth of your business to slow down.
Possible Reasons Why Your Amazon FBA Item is Not Selling
Even the most experienced Amazon sellers can end up with unsold items in their accounts.
There are various reasons why your Amazon FBA item is not selling. It’s important to understand each one of them to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Price Discrepancy
One reason why your product may not be selling is if there’s a price discrepancy. Maybe you’re selling it too high compared to your competitors, or maybe it’s too low that shoppers will think you’re selling a low-quality product.
Listing is Not Optimized Enough
It’s possible that you have a good product, but the problem is with your product listing. Maybe your image is not clear enough, or you’re not using relevant keywords on your title, bullets, and description.
Your Product is Not In-Demand Enough
Insufficient demand for your market niche is another likely reason why your item is not selling. That’s why conducting thorough research about a product or niche is extremely important right from the start.
You’re Not Promoting it Enough
Amazon is a very competitive marketplace, and if you’re not promoting your product enough, then it will be lost in the search results. Check your PPC campaigns and make sure they’re running, or maybe it’s time you analyze your PPC strategies and see what you’re doing wrong.
Your Product Doesn’t Have Enough Reviews
Another reason your listing isn’t converting is that it does not have enough reviews. Amazon buyers often read reviews before deciding to purchase a product or not. Product reviews are a critical component of your listing as they successfully indicate the quality of your product.
Related Reading: Amazon Review Not Showing Up? The Top 5 Reasons Why
What to Do with Unsold Items
There are several things you can do with your unsold items to ensure you don’t lose that much money.
Create Removal Order
You can choose to remove your unsold items to avoid long storage fees. To create a removal order for your unsold inventory, follow this procedure:
- Go to Amazon Seller Central.
- Click Manage Inventory, Edit, and Create removal order.
- Under Method of Removal, select your preferred method.
- If you select Ship-to address, supply the necessary information in the Shipping Address section.
- If you select Dispose, the shipping address fields will gray out.
- Enter the number of units that you want to remove. Click Continue.
- On the next screen, click confirmation to finish the removal process.
Please note that you need to pay the FBA removal order fee, so be sure to check how it’s calculated.
Reprice Your Item
You can lower your price if you think you’re selling it higher than your competitors. You can also offer discounts or promotions so it will be more enticing to shoppers. To get the best price for your item, it pays to do some tests and carefully analyze your data.
Improve Product Listing
Create a better Amazon product listing by doing keyword research, including relevant keywords in the product description, and using high-quality photos of your products. Optimize the title, pricing, images, and key features as well.
Related Reading: How To Create Amazon Listing Properly in 2021 | Amazon FBA
Advertise and Promote Outside of Amazon
Follow a multi-channel retail approach to advertise your product outside of Amazon. A multi-channel retailing strategy helps increase the exposure of your products in different storefronts. It’s also an efficient way to improve product exposure.
You can also use other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, to promote your product. This way, you can reach more customers even outside of Amazon.
Sell Them Wholesale
Selling your inventory through a wholesale liquidator is another option for handling your unsold items rather than paying Amazon to remove or dispose of your products. If you choose this, you recover a part of your inventory expense.
Wholesale liquidators will buy your unsold items for a gross recovery value of about 5% to 10% of the product’s average selling price (ASP). You pay the net recovery value after Amazon deducts processing and referral fees.
Liquidate Your Products on Amazon
Through Amazon FBA liquidation, you can regain value from your unsold items. The net recovery value of the inventory to be liquidated will be estimated based on overall sales history, average FBA selling price, and ASIN-specific sales history. Once liquidated, the maximum recovered value is 5% to 20% of your product’s ASP.
Watch my video on how you can liquidate your slow-moving items.
How to Prevent Having Unsold Items on Amazon
Choosing the right products is a critical step if you want to succeed as an Amazon FBA seller. You can sell brand generic products if you can offer them at the lowest price. If you also have a unique product that customers have a need for, it has a good chance of being successful.
Find products to sell using the Amazon keyword research tool and look for low-competition keywords. You can also check out some of the best-selling product categories, such as apparel and accessories, electronics, health and nutrition products, and home and garden products.
As for launching your product, start with finding the right keywords to make your product search-friendly. Create your product listing, set up your ad campaigns, and provide exceptional and optimized content for your Amazon Storefront.
Related Reading: How To Find Private Label Products To Sell On Amazon Fba In 2020 Part 1
Conclusion
When you’re dealing with stalling sales of your unsold Amazon FBA products, changing things to improve the outcome can be done without great difficulty. While the results won’t happen overnight, paying attention to the tips enumerated above is vital to improving your sales and preventing unsold items on your Amazon FBA account.
Have you experienced dealing with an item that doesn’t sell? What did you do about it? Please share your experience in the comments section below so that others can learn from your experience. Are you looking for a complete Amazon FBA guide? Read my What is Amazon FBA: Complete Amazon FBA Guide in 2023 post!
Also, don’t forget to visit my Amazon FBA course! You’ll learn a lot of Amazon FBA tips and tricks that other course creators don’t share.