Seventy-six days from this morning, a unit of a multi-brand kit sitting in an Amazon fulfillment center stops being inventory and becomes a removal order you'll have to place. Amazon's notice says you can sell non-compliant bundles through Jan 11, 2027, and what happens to the ones you didn't: deactivation, a violation in Account Health, and FBA stock you can't sell until you pay to get it out.
Read as a listing rule, that's a January problem. Read as an inventory rule, it's a reorder you shouldn't have placed.
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A sell-through window with a hard edge
Effective Jan 11: most single-ASIN bundles must come packaged by the original manufacturer or brand. Repackaged kits need a letter of authorization from the brand owner, uploaded to Account Health after a flag. Gifting browse nodes, camera product types and Virtual Bundles are exempt. Otherwise it's a sell-through window with a hard edge: whatever's left is yours to remove.
Three costs land on a kit that crosses the date. The peak fee you already paid on the inbound. The Q4 storage rate, $2.40 a cubic foot, for every month it sat. And the removal fee per unit to get it out. None of it shows up on the listing.
Q4 compresses the runway in both directions
Velocity rises through Black Friday, so days of cover shrinks, which looks like good news. But a kit is the gift-season version of a product, and its velocity collapses in the first week of January, exactly when the clock stops. Thirty days of cover today can be sixty on Jan 2. The 76 days to the deadline are about 60 days of selling.
And a letter doesn't rescue stock. It restores the listing, not the days the listing was down, and a kit deactivated on Jan 11 with 400 units behind it pays storage while the appeal runs.
Your own liquidation desk, with a published date
Amazon has turned bundle sellers into their own liquidation desk. The assemblers who read the notice as "listings" discount in January and pay removal on the rest. The ones who read it as "inventory" discount in November, when the demand is there, and reach Jan 11 sold out. One funds the other's Q1.
The Numbers
Jan 11, 2027 — the morning unsold non-compliant FBA kits stop being sellable and become a removal order to place
76 — days from this send to that morning. About 60 of them are selling days for a gift kit
$2.40 — Q4 storage per cubic foot, Oct through Dec, on every kit unit that waits
3 — exits from the rule: a brand letter, exempt nodes and product types, Virtual Bundles
0 — days a letter adds to the sell-through window. It restores a listing, not a calendar
Translation: The bundle policy has a listing date and an inventory date, and they're the same day. Your last kit reorder has to land and sell out before Jan 11, which means that decision was due before this email. Every unit that outlasts the date costs three times: inbound, storage, and the removal order you place yourself. Price the kit to be gone by Christmas, not by compliance.
The Brief
Nov 16 — lithium-battery verification notices keep coming. Amazon's sweep on smart-home and consumer electronics with lithium batteries runs notices through Nov 16, each carrying its own due date. It isn't a universal deadline, but a notice you didn't open is a due date you missed.
Listing Protection lands by year-end. For Account Health Assurance sellers: a grace period before most listing enforcements, listings that stay live during appeal in most covered cases, three challenges per 180 days. US by end of 2026. Check your Account Health Rating — the benefit sits above 250, and Jan 11 is a listing enforcement.
Oct 25 — Amazon Shipping peak surcharges started. They run through Jan 16, with the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on top, on top of the FBA peak fee that started Oct 15. If you ship your own orders through Amazon Shipping, re-quote a lane this week.
Quick Win
Delegate to whoever owns replenishment. Thirty minutes, one sheet.
Run the kit runway before the next reorder.
List every FBA SKU you pack from more than one brand, or repackage from one. Leave off gifting browse nodes and camera product types (exempt) and any kit with a signed brand letter on file. Check the node, not the title.
Stock to clear: Available plus Inbound from Manage FBA Inventory. Inbound counts: a shipment that has shipped can't be cancelled, only sold.
Velocity: if the kit sold last Q4, use last year's Nov 1–Dec 24 daily units from Business Reports. If it didn't exist, use the trailing 30 days divided by 30. Stock divided by velocity is days of cover.
Compare to 60, not 76. Over 60: delete any shipment plan still in Working, stop the reorder, set a markdown date in November. Under 60: Hold, and don't reorder.
The artifact: a one-page kit runway sheet, every non-exempt bundle SKU with stock, velocity, days of cover against 60, and a Stop, Markdown, or Hold beside it, dated today.
Sixty is the selling window: Oct 27 to Dec 25. Gift-kit demand drops hard after Christmas, so the last two weeks before Jan 11 count as zero. Days of cover says nothing about profit and nothing about whether a letter arrives; plan as if it won't, and let the letter be upside. Three shortcuts to avoid: don't create removal orders now, because removal is the fee this sheet exists to prevent; don't reorder on a brand's verbal yes, because a December arrival lands inside the dark period; and don't mark down before checking the node, because an exempt kit marked down is margin given away.
The policy is four months old. The runway is 60 days.
The reorder was due last week.
See you Friday.
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— Dan
