Deleting listings/Out of stock
I am fairly new to selling on Amazon and have a few questions. For listings that have already sold, is it ok to delete them or should i just leave them alone?
Also, in reviewing my inventory and prices, I have come across a few that have been listed for months and have not sold, but yet are showing out of stock or unavailable nor does it show a quantity. What should I do about this?
11 replies
Seller_kIukTwdhvntAp
"For listings that have already sold, is it ok to delete them or should i just leave them alone?"
If you are never going to sell the same item again in the future it should be deleted to protect yourself from any future claims by Amazon.
They have been known to go through items that have not been active for YEARS and claim violations.
Just 'deleting' only does part of the job though!
HOW TO PERMANENTLY REMOVE AN ASIN
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201576560
Delete SKUs Using Inventory Loader
You can use the Inventory Loader to delete SKUs from your inventory. Deleting SKUs is different from deleting offerings. Product detail pages are created based on input from many sellers. Using the Inventory Loader to delete SKUs will remove your contributions to the descriptive product attributes that are rendered on product detail pages. This enables you to manage the item data associated with specific SKUs.
Delete both your offers and item data contributions.
Enter an "x" in the add-delete field in your Inventory Loader file. This will completely remove all data associated with your SKU.
Deactivate your offers without deleting item data contributions.
Enter a "d" in the add-delete field in your Inventory Loader file. When you delete offers by entering a "d" in the add-delete field, it sets your inventory for the SKUs to "0". This will make those listings show as inactive.
If you submitted a category-specific inventory file originally and want to use an Inventory Loader file to delete SKUs or make other changes to your listings, you can modify an Active Listings Report. See Use Reports to Update Inventory
Reuse of SKUs
• In general, we discourage reusing SKUs for different products. Each SKU should have a one-to-one relationship with a unique ASIN.
• Assign a new SKU to each new product being sold. This will maintain previous item data contributions that are associated with a specific SKU.
• If you do reuse a SKU, first delete the active ASIN data or you will receive an error message. To remove old associations before reusing a SKU, enter an "x" in your Inventory Loader file. This is important for sellers who routinely reuse SKUs to associate previous SKUs with new ASINs.
SIDE NOTE and personal opinion - I suspect it wouldn’t help anyway because I doubt the lawyers would ever allow complete removal of the information due to legal liabilities at some point –
Seller_Ha6JyVvDK6Ybs
Its easier to leave them up when you plan to sell more in the future however Amazon will punish you and harm your sales if down the road something or bots reprogramed and now say this listings are bad it will be your fault even if you haven't sold in years so watch out as something or someone is always out to get you.
Seller_aUbEyzlSSnsDJ
Where do you buy you stuff. If you are selling stuff, don't you want to restock. If not, then delete the sold-out items.
Glenn_Amazon
Hi there @Seller_99ZYBVMwzIT31,
I will say that the information provided by @Seller_kIukTwdhvntAp is correct, you don't need to retain listings you don't intend to sell in the future. I generally recommend you wait 90 days from your last order, so you are out of the standard A-to-Z Claim window before deleting. But please note you can always recreate a listing if you need to in the future. Hope you found some of these responses helpful.
Thank you for your understanding.
-Glenn
