Stale Inventory Sales Analysis

I just pulled numbers on our sales of stale inventory for the past 30 days. I did it because we don’t like stale inventory. We prefer a fast nickel over a slow dime, so we reprice our stale inventory a little more aggressively than some sellers. Maybe your business model is different but this is what works for us.

Because we don’t like stale inventory, we reduce our min/max prices every 30 days on stale inventory – anything that has been in our FBA inventory for over 90 days, as shown by Amazon’s Aged Inventory Report (Seller Central: Reports: Fulfillment: Aged Inventory).

We cut our Min Prices by 10% and our Max Prices by 25%. Why do we cut our Max more that our Min? That’s what I want to talk about.

I won’t go into detail on exactly how I do it because I already made a Youtube tutorial on how to reprice stale Amazon inventory.

What I want to share today is some hard numbers I just pulled. I want to share these numbers because I like them.They show exactly what I was hoping to see. Yes, I would have shared them if they didn’t, because I like to let others learn from my mistakes, but it’s more fun to share when the numbers agree with your gut, right?

Out of just over 10,000 sales in the past 30 days, 603 were units that were over 90 days old – items that we had reduced our min/max prices on.

Of those 603 sales of stale inventory, over 400 still had a positive ROI. But more importantly, 304 sold at prices higher than our original Minimum Price. Do you know what that means? Yes, it means they were still profitable, But more importantly, I think it confirms my belief that often the Max Price is the problem, not the Min.

Our average net profit on these sales of stale inventory was still $4.92, or 26% ROI. That’s including some bad buys that sold at big losses.

Bottom line: pay attention to your Max prices as well as your Mins. Sometimes it’s not about being the cheapest. Sometimes it’s about NOT being too expensive.

Bonus lesson: measure results, don’t rely on your gut. Why didn’t I pull these numbers sooner? If you’re wrong, it’s better to know ASAP!