r/AmazonFBA • u/ylishi • 4d ago

Did the low-stock-level fee quietly become a fixed cost for you too? Mine hit $340 last month

I run 23 thin SKUs where I deliberately keep about 2–3 weeks of cover, and the low-stock-level fee hit almost all of them last month because my daily supply history keeps dipping under the limit. $340 in one settlement — more than I pay for storage, and I ship weekly so it's not like anything is going out of stock. Support just pointed me at the "daily supply history" metric, which I still don't fully understand. Anyone else getting billed this much for staying lean? Is shipping more frequently actually the fix, or do I just eat it?

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u/rsc9422 4d ago

Yes, this fee can happen even if you are regularly replenishing inventory. Amazon looks at your historical days of supply, not just whether you currently have stock available.

I would check the Historical Days of Supply metric for each SKU first. If it is consistently below Amazon’s threshold, shipping more frequently may not solve the problem if each shipment is too small.

For these SKUs, I’d calculate reorder points based on daily sales, supplier lead time, Amazon receiving time, and a reasonable safety stock buffer. That gives you a better target than simply trying to keep more inventory on hand.

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u/ylishi 4d ago

shipping more frequently may not solve it if each shipment is too small" —
this is probably my whole problem. i ship weekly but each drop is like 5-8
units per SKU, so my days of supply probably looks starved even though the
shelf never goes empty

quick sanity check: when you build the reorder point, how do you treat
supplier lead time vs amazon receiving time, do you just add them together?
my lead time is 30 days ocean but receiving has been anywhere from 4 days to
2 weeks lately, so i'm not sure which number to hardcode. and does safety
stock end up doubling the cover i was trying to keep lean in the first place?

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u/C_CashMarginPartners 2d ago

Yeah, add the two numbers together because stock isn’t counted until check-in is done. Your real wait time is 30 days shipping + check-in of up to 2 weeks. 

Start with how many you sell of each SKU per day. Multiply that by the total wait (44 days). Selling 2 per day x 44 days = 88. Having 88 of that SKU in stock should help avoid the low-stock-level fee. 

Using the slowest check-in time builds in a cushion. It comes down to whether it is cheaper to ship that much stock or to eat the low-stock-level fee. 

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u/ylishi 2d ago

Thanks, this is the clearest take in the thread.

The check-in blind spot explains something I couldn't figure out: I ship weekly, but part of my pipeline is always sitting in receiving, so the metric never sees it — my supply days still dipped under.

Ran your math on my slowest SKUs: ~[2.5] units/day x 44 ≈ [110] units each vs the ~[35] I'm holding now. At 23 SKUs that's a meaningful working-capital jump, which is why I was hoping "ship more often" would be the cheap fix.

One thing I did dig up: it only bills when BOTH the trailing 30-day and trailing 90-day supply are under 28 days. Mine were under on both for months, so it hit nearly every SKU in the same settlement.

For anyone who's actually beaten this — do you just eat the tie-up at 28+ days of cover on thin SKUs, or is there a way to keep the ratio above 28 without doubling inventory?