E385: Is FBA Dead?

Mike and Dave talk about why Amazon is pushing sellers away from FBA, how they are dealing with storage limits, and what fallback strategies you can use.   "Amazon is not a retail company, it's a logistics company that does retail."   Interesting adage. But is it still true today?   In this episode, Dave and I will try to dissect Amazon's mindset—whether over the next several months, they will try to get more sellers to send more of their inventory into FBA, or push them towards Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) or merchant-fulfilled models.    In particular, we'll go over key factors that might be affecting Amazon's recent moves, including COVID, supply chain disruptions, and rising labor costs.   We'll also look into Amazon's recently-updated inventory and restock limitations, how it shakes things up for third party sellers, and what strategies we are putting in place to stay ahead of the curve.    Finally, we'll talk about our general fallback options in case FBA does cease (whether partially or entirely) to make sense for ecommerce sellers.    If you're looking for some insights as to what's been going on with FBA and how you can plan your business around that, definitely give this one a listen.    Timestamps: Is FBA dying? – 4:24 How rising wages could affect Amazon's mindset on FBA – 12:10 Dealing with Amazon's new inventory and restock limits – 14:25 The pains of managing your own warehouse – 23:57   It's always a pleasure having Dave to bounce my ideas off of. Feel free to check out his piece on Amazon's Storage Limits in 2021 and all the other good stuff over on the EcomCrew Blog.   Also, in case you missed it, today is the last day that EcomCrew Premium will be open for the quarter. We limit our openings to make sure that we can cater to all of our Premium members, so if you're someone who could use unlimited email support from two 7-figure sellers, finds value in webinars presented by industry experts, and are looking to join a community of like-minded entrepreneurs, give Premium a try.   Finally, leave us a review over on iTunes if you liked this episode. Until the next one, happy selling and we'll talk to you soon!