Amazon suffers from one significant problem that affects many of the 1P Vendor Central Vendors we work with. Amazon’s inventory projections system is entirely based on algorithms and has no human influence. Amazon’s system bases its orders on recent sales velocity and overall demand of an item. But this brings up a major question. How does Amazon know how much to order of a new product?
The answer is they don’t. And so we have deemed the New Amazon Product Paradox. New Orders are generated based on existing demand but there is no existing demand because there are no items to order.
This is where understanding the Amazon system and taking things into your own hands can establish a new product on Amazon. This is where having a Seller Central store comes into play. Launching a product on Seller Central relies entirely on your own initiative.
What Seller Central allows you to do right from the beginning:
Upload your new product listing
Send in your inventory to FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon)
Advertise your products at your own discretion
Set any retail price
Once you have established your product through Seller Central, Amazon Vendor Central should start to generate orders with that product. At that point you have the option to stick with Seller Central or move to Vendor Central. This decision would be based on the relationship with your Vendor Manager, your comparative profitability, risk of financial threshold issues on AMS, and your other business goals.
With one of our clients, a textile company, they had introduced a new product that was not generating any orders on Vendor Central. We were able to establish 4 variations on the same Parent ASIN, generate a profitable advertising campaign, and eventually Vendor Central ordered the product.
