Have you noticed that Amazon is ordering products from your FBA stock and are wondering why Amazon is doing this and how you can prevent it? Then you've come to the right place. In the following, I will explain the background and what can be done.
In particular, sellers who are just starting out on the Amazon marketplace are always surprised to receive direct orders from Amazon at the end customer price.
This can then look as follows:
As can be seen in the screenshot, Amazon has already placed 17 orders with this seller account. The orders in this example are then intended for the UK marketplace, as the email address also reveals.
In this example, Amazon only ordered one unit at a time. However, I am also aware of cases in which Amazon ordered 40 units at once.
Are you wondering why Amazon is doing this at all?
This is because Amazon has recognized a demand for a product like yours on an international marketplace where your product is not currently offered.
In the example of the 17 orders from Amazon, the customer's products were simply offered on the UK marketplace. Whenever an end customer placed an order on the UK marketplace, a product was simply ordered on the German marketplace and then sent to the end customer in the UK. In terms of revenue, this did not pay off for Amazon. Amazon does not buy your goods to offer them at a higher price on another marketplace, but to increase the variety of products on offer.
So if Amazon notices that a certain category is underrepresented on a marketplace, Amazon places orders directly via the marketplace.
This may be a good indication that you should perhaps expand into this marketplace independently.
What can I do if I want to stop Amazon from buying up my stock?
Well, you can simply go to the FBA settings (Settings → Shipping by Amazon) and go to the "Shipping programs and export settings" section and set this from "enabled" to "disabled".
The export settings are set to "activated" by default and must always be deactivated first if required.
Whether you should deactivate the settings depends on your goals and focus. If you don't want to internationalize in the short term and don't want to deal with returns and translations, but still want to expand the addressable market, then you should leave the settings activated.
However, if you are planning to sell internationally yourself soon or offer your stock exclusively for the German market, you should deactivate these export settings.
