Storage limits criteria

Individual selling accounts have a set storage limit, which does not increase or decrease.

Professional selling accounts may or may not have storage limits, depending on the following criteria:

• Sellers who maintain an Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score of 350 or greater will have unlimited storage for standard-size, oversize, clothing and footwear items.
• Sellers with an IPI score of less than 350 six weeks before the end of a quarter will be notified of their potential storage limits. If their score is still less than 350 during the last full week of the quarter, the limits will apply for the next quarter.
• Sellers without an IPI score will receive unlimited storage until enough data is collected to generate a score.

You can check your IPI score on the Inventory performance dashboard, where we also provide you with the following four ways you can improve your performance:

• Reduce excess inventory : Take action on the Manage Excess Inventory page to reduce your storage fees and carrying costs.
• Improve sell-through : Take action on the Inventory Age page to increase your Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) sell-through rate on low-traffic and low-conversion products.
• Fix listings : Take action on the Fix Stranded Inventory page to ensure that your inventory is available for purchase.
• Restock inventory : Take action on the Restock Inventory page to increase your FBA in-stock rate.

Setting quarterly limits

For sellers with a Professional selling account, storage limits are evaluated every three months. If your IPI score is less than 350 six weeks before the end of the quarter, you will be notified of your potential storage limits. If your IPI score is still less than 350 during the last full week of the quarter, those limits will apply for the next quarter.

Quarterly storage limits are based on:

• Your sales volume
• Your historical IPI scores
• Available fulfilment centre capacity

Sellers with consistently higher scores will receive higher storage limits, adjusted for sales volume and available capacity. When setting limits for an upcoming quarter, Amazon considers both your recent sales volume and seasonal volume from the last year.

Quarterly storage limits schedule

Starting October 1, 2019, storage limits will be set by volume and adjusted on a quarterly cycle. Storage limits will be determined based on your Inventory Performance Index score during two weeks of the quarter: the sixth week before the end of the quarter and the last full week of the quarter. You will can achieve unlimited storage if your Inventory Performance Index score is above 350 on either of these dates. The following table lists these dates, as well as the effective dates for the associated storage limits.

First score check

(sixth week before the quarter ends) Final score check

(last full week of the quarter) Storage limit effective period
Week 33 Week 39 October 1–December 31
Week 46 Week 52 January 1–March 31
Week 7 Week 13 April 1–June 30
Week 20 Week 26 July 1–September 30

For sellers with Professional selling accounts, storage limits will not be set lower than 25 cubic feet for each storage type.

Storage types

Storage limits are applicable for four storage types: standard-size, oversize, clothing and footwear. You can see which storage types your products are categorised as and how many cubic feet they occupy using the FBA Inventory Age page and the Inventory Age report.

If you do not see a storage type in your Storage Monitor, it is because you have a limit of zero for that storage type.

Dangerous goods storage limit adjustments (flammable and aerosol) are handled separately from other storage types. For more information, search for ‘dangerous goods’ in Seller Central and select Dangerous Goods FAQ at the top of the search panel.

Note: Amazon determines the storage type of your inventory based on the characteristics of the product. Storage type is not a category that sellers can adjust. Products are not classified by more than one storage type.

Calculating cubic feet from centimetres

1. Multiply length x width x height in cm to get the volume.

2. Divide the volume by 28,316.8, which is one cubic foot in cm.

Example: A unit measuring 100 x 60 x 25 cm divided by 28316.8 = 5.30 cubic feet.

Note: Amazon may verify the weight and dimensions of a product using representative samples. Amazon’s information about a product’s weight and dimensions will be used to calculate fees if there is a difference between Amazon’s information and a seller’s information. Amazon may change its information about a product’s weight and dimensions from time to time to reflect updated measurements. Fees based on the weight and dimensions of a product are calculated using Amazon’s information about the weight and dimensions of that product at the time the fee is calculated.

Exceeding your FBA storage limit

Under the FBA inventory storage limits policy, you will not be able to create a new shipment to Amazon for a storage type until your inventory level drops below your limit for that storage type.

For example, if your current limit for standard-size inventory is 106 cubic feet and you have 176 cubic feet of standard-size inventory at an Amazon fulfilment centre, you will not be able to create a new standard-size inventory shipment. However, if you are below your storage limit for oversize inventory, you will be able to create shipments of oversize inventory.

If you send more inventory than your storage limit allows, the extra inventory may be refused at the fulfilment centre. For more information, see Shipping and routing requirements.

Reducing inventory

There are three ways to decrease the amount of inventory that you have in an Amazon fulfilment centre:

• Sell more inventory. Manage Excess Inventory provides recommendations to increase sales.
• Request to have inventory returned to you by creating a removal order.
• Request to have inventory disposed of by creating a removal order.

For more information, see Remove inventory (overview).

Important: When you submit a removal order or make similar changes, the inventory Storage Monitor won’t reflect the changes until your request has been processed, typically on the following day. Also, customer returns contribute to your overall inventory count.

Tracking ASIN limits

We may also create storage limits for specific ASINs. If an ASIN-specific limit is applied to your seller account, you can find the details in the downloadable Inventory Health report under the header asin-limit . This information is not available in the online Inventory Health report. See ASIN quantity limits for FBA.

Frequently asked questions

Will you inform me if my Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score is low?

Yes – if your IPI score is 350 or less, we will email you a monthly alert to inform you.

When will I know if I have storage limits during the next quarterly cycle and what those storage limits will be?

You will be informed what your potential storage limits will be six weeks before the end of the current quarter. Those limits will only go into effect if your IPI score is also less than 350 during the last full week of the quarter.

What happens if my IPI score is above 350 six weeks before the start of the next quarter but below 350 on the last week of the quarter? For example, 400 on week 33 and 300 on week 39.

You will have storage limits only if your IPI score is less than 350 six weeks before the end of the current quarter and during the last week of the current quarter. In this example, you would not have storage limits because your score was more than 350 six weeks before the quarter ended.

What if I do not have an IPI score or am a new FBA seller?

Most sellers with Professional selling accounts have an IPI score, but some do not because we do not have enough data to generate a score for the account (for example, sellers who are new to FBA or have small quantities of FBA inventory).

After you first receive an IPI score, you will not be subject to storage limits for 26 weeks.

For example, if you receive your first IPI score on week 3 (during Q1), you would have unlimited storage for all of Q2 and Q3, and then be subject to storage limits starting in Q4. You would need to maintain a score above 350 six weeks before the end of Q3 and the last full week of Q3 in order to keep unlimited storage in Q4.

You can view the date you received your first IPI score by clicking the Show details link under the IPI score colour bar. This will reveal your Historical performance index and your First IPI date will be visible above the graph.

Most sellers will receive their first IPI score approximately 13 weeks after their first product is received by FBA.

If you have an IPI score under 350 six weeks before the end of the current quarter, and you no longer have an IPI score the last week of the quarter, you will be subject to the specified storage limits for the next quarter.

This does not apply if it has been less than 26 weeks since you received your first IPI score.

Visit the Inventory performance dashboard and Get your inventory in shape for recommendations on managing your inventory.

Can I change the storage type of a product?

No, storage types are determined by Amazon based on characteristics of the product.

You can check which storage type your products are categorised as and how many cubic feet they occupy on the FBA Inventory Age page.

Can I trade space for one storage type with space in another storage type?

No, inventory cannot be traded between storage types.