Amazon gives sellers restock reminders in two places: the Restock Inventory tool for FBA products, and a restock notification in Manage Inventory for Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) listings. Both are useful, but neither knows your supplier’s real lead time or your cash position. This guide shows where to find each one, how to read it, and how to add a simple reorder-point routine so you reorder before a stockout, not after.
This page is for sellers. If you are a shopper looking for a back-in-stock alert on a product, the Wish List is the place to start. The rest of this article is about keeping your own listings available.
TL;DR
- FBA sellers find recommended quantities and dates under Inventory > Inventory Planning > Restock Inventory in Seller Central.
- FBM sellers can open a restock recommendation from Manage Inventory by clicking Restock notification in the Inventory column.
- Amazon’s numbers depend on the lead times and settings you give it, so check them product by product.
- Add your own reorder point: daily sales multiplied by total lead time, plus a safety buffer.
- Automating alerts and forecasts saves you from checking dashboards by hand every morning.
Table of Contents
- Where to find Amazon’s restock reminders
- How to read a recommendation before you act on it
- Why a reminder can be late, wrong or missing
- Build your own reorder point
- Avoiding the opposite problem: too much stock
- Why stock matters beyond sales
- A weekly restock routine that works
- Our perspective on restock reminders
- Automate the checking with Osellpa
- Common restock mistakes to avoid
- FAQ
- Sources
Where to find Amazon’s restock reminders
Amazon does not send one single “restock reminder”. It offers several tools, depending on who fulfils the order.
FBA: the Restock Inventory tool
For products fulfilled by Amazon, the Restock Tool sits in Seller Central under Inventory > Inventory Planning > Restock Inventory. It recommends quantities and ship-by dates based on your sales history, demand forecasts, seasonality and the inputs you provide.
The same guide says the tool takes product purchase costs and possible future price changes into account when it builds its advice. In practice that means two sellers with identical sales can see different suggestions if their costs and settings differ.
Amazon also describes an Inventory Performance Dashboard that sends low-stock alerts and supports demand planning and forecasting for FBA sellers. Check which alerts you have switched on in your notification preferences, because an alert you have never enabled cannot warn you.
FBM: restock recommendations in Manage Inventory
If you ship orders yourself, Amazon still offers a recommendation. On the UK Seller Central, you can open it from Manage Inventory by clicking Restock notification in the Inventory column. The feature calculates suggested restock quantities and restock-by dates.
It does not cover every listing. Amazon’s announcement says a product needs active sales in the last three months and current days of supply below 14 days to qualify. A slow seller, a brand new listing or a product you have only just replenished may show nothing, and that is not a fault.
The restock report
Many sellers pull the Restock Inventory Report to see the same data in a spreadsheet. A seller-forum answer from Amazon described it as the best source of restock recommendations, with its key metrics due to move into the FBA Inventory Report over time. If your saved workflow depends on one report, look at where it now lives before it disappears from your routine.
How to read a recommendation before you act on it
A recommendation is a starting point. Amazon states that its restock suggestions are dynamic: they reflect your real-time inventory position and the latest demand forecast. Check them often rather than once a month, and adjust product-level settings such as lead times and replenishment frequency.
For each product, ask five questions:
- Are the lead times right? Supplier lead time and your own prep and shipping time are the inputs that most often drift. If your supplier now takes six weeks and the setting says four, every date will be too optimistic.
- Is inbound stock counted? Units already on the way to a fulfilment centre reduce what you need. Units stuck in receiving still leave you exposed.
- Is a promotion or season coming? Forecasts use seasonality and history. A one-off event you have planned, such as a lightning deal or a new bundle, may not be in the numbers.
- Can you afford the order? The tool does not know your cash flow. A correct recommendation you cannot pay for is still a stockout.
- Will the shipment fit? Capacity limits can block a shipment you have already bought stock for. Our guide to calculating FBA headroom explains how to check before you order.
Why a reminder can be late, wrong or missing
When a restock reminder looks off, the cause is usually one of these:
- Eligibility. FBM recommendations need recent sales and low days of supply. Products outside those criteria are not flagged.
- Stale settings. Lead times, replenishment frequency and costs are inputs you maintain. Amazon recommends adjusting them at product level when conditions change.
- Data mismatches. Lost, damaged or unreceived units make Amazon’s count differ from yours. Amazon recommends regular inventory audits, at least once or twice a year, to find and fix discrepancies before they become large problems. In a busy business, a quarterly audit is a sensible habit.
- Timing. A notification is only as fast as your next login. If you look at Seller Central once a week and a bestseller sells 40 units a day, the alert arrives after the problem.
Build your own reorder point
Amazon’s recommendation should be checked against a number you can calculate yourself in a minute. The reorder point is the stock level at which you place a new order.
Reorder point = average daily sales × total lead time in days + safety stock
Total lead time covers production or supplier dispatch, transit to you, prep, and delivery to Amazon through to being available to buy.
A worked example
These figures are illustrative, not a benchmark. Say a kitchen product averages 12 units a day.
| Step | Days |
|---|---|
| Supplier production and dispatch | 25 |
| Transit to your prep centre or the UK | 20 |
| Prep and delivery to Amazon | 7 |
| Check-in and availability | 5 |
| Total lead time | 57 |
Demand during lead time is 12 × 57 = 684 units. Add a safety buffer of 14 days of sales (168 units) and your reorder point is 852 units. When your available plus inbound stock drops to 852, you order.
Amazon’s guidance points the same way: use demand-planning analysis to find an optimum inventory level, watch sales and past order quantities, and keep enough backup units to avoid running out.
Compare your number with the Restock tool’s. If they differ by a lot, find out why. Often the tool is using a shorter lead time than your supplier actually delivers.
Set the safety buffer by product
Not every product deserves the same buffer. A simple approach:
- Bestsellers and products driving most of your profit: the longest buffer, because a stockout costs you the most.
- Steady mid-sellers: a moderate buffer.
- Slow or seasonal lines: a short buffer, so you do not tie up cash or pay avoidable storage later.
Avoiding the opposite problem: too much stock
A restock reminder that makes you over-order creates its own cost. Stock that sits too long attracts storage charges, and our guides on long-term storage fees and excess inventory at 90, 180 and 365 days show how to act before those charges apply. If your Inventory Performance Index score has slipped, the IPI diagnosis guide walks you through the check.
Amazon suggests keeping an eye on both risks by monitoring daily inventory and storage reports through the Seller Central dashboard or the mobile app. A five-minute daily check of days of supply, inbound units and the stranded or aged lists catches most problems early.
Why stock matters beyond sales
An out-of-stock listing stops earning, but it also affects the rest of the business. Ads keep spending on a product you cannot ship, and the keyword work you did on the listing does not pay back. If you are working on how your listings are found, this overview of Amazon SEO explained covers the visibility side. Keeping the product in stock is what lets that effort convert.
For a deeper look at planning demand SKU by SKU, read our guide to inventory forecasting per FNSKU. If you want the whole picture of the UK seller’s inventory process, start with the Amazon inventory management playbook.
A weekly restock routine that works
You do not need a complicated system. This routine takes about 30 minutes for a catalogue of a few dozen products.
- Monday: review days of supply. Sort your inventory by days of supply, lowest first. Anything below your product’s total lead time needs a decision today.
- Compare against Amazon’s suggestion. Open the Restock Inventory tool for FBA, or the restock notification for FBM. Note where it differs from your reorder point.
- Confirm lead times with suppliers. For any product you are about to order, check the real current lead time, not the one in last year’s spreadsheet.
- Check cash and capacity. Make sure you can fund the order and that the shipment fits your limits.
- Place the order and record it. Log the order date, quantity and expected arrival, so next week’s check counts inbound stock correctly.
- Review ads on low-stock lines. If a product will run out before replenishment lands, lower bids or pause campaigns rather than spending on a listing that cannot fulfil.
- Once a quarter, audit. Reconcile your records against Amazon’s counts and raise reimbursement cases for lost or damaged units.
Our perspective on restock reminders
Most stockouts we see in seller accounts are not caused by bad forecasts. They are caused by information arriving too late. The recommendation exists in Seller Central, but nobody was looking at it on the day it mattered.
That is why we built Osellpa around automation and alerts instead of more dashboards to check. Our tools connect to Amazon’s API, so inventory, sales and advertising data sit in one place. Our inventory management and alerts tools are designed to bring the products that need attention to you.
We also think stock decisions belong next to profit decisions. A reorder is a cash commitment. When you can see profit per product beside days of supply, you can tell which restocks deserve priority and which can wait. A spreadsheet rarely gives you that without hours of manual work.
Whatever tools you use, keep your own reorder point as a sanity check. Amazon’s recommendation is a good input. Your supplier knowledge and your cash position are the other two.
Harry
Automate the checking with Osellpa
If you would rather not open several reports every Monday, Osellpa brings your inventory, profit and advertising data together from Amazon’s API. Our inventory management software is built to help you see what needs reordering, and the alerts tool is there to flag changes to your products and rankings without you hunting for them.
Plans are tiered by Amazon sales volume. Launch is £10 per month or £96 per year, Scale is £20 per month or £192 per year, and Advanced is £40 per month or £384 per year. See the pricing page for what each plan includes and which one fits your sales.
Common restock mistakes to avoid
- Trusting one lead time for every product. Suppliers differ, and so do shipping methods. Set lead times per product.
- Ignoring inbound shipments in receiving. Units that have not been checked in cannot be sold. Count them as inbound, not available.
- Reordering on the day stock runs out. If your lead time is eight weeks, a reminder at zero days of supply is already eight weeks late.
- Restocking from last quarter’s averages. A sales spike or a drop changes the number. Review at least weekly for your top products.
- Forgetting the exit plan. Before ordering a large batch, know how you would clear it if sales slow. The automated replenishment guide shows how to do this without fees eating your margin.
- Skipping new programmes. If you are launching products, see how the FBA New Selection Programme affects your first shipments.
FAQ
Does Amazon send restock reminders to sellers automatically?
Amazon offers restock recommendations in Seller Central, and its Inventory Performance Dashboard can send low-stock alerts for FBA sellers. You need to check your notification settings and open the tools to benefit from them. For FBM listings, the recommendation appears only when a product meets Amazon’s sales and days-of-supply criteria.
Where is the restock tool in Seller Central?
For FBA products, go to Inventory, then Inventory Planning, then Restock Inventory. For FBM listings on the UK marketplace, open Manage Inventory and click Restock notification in the Inventory column. If you do not see it for a product, check that it has had recent sales and low days of supply.
How often should I check my restock recommendations?
Amazon says recommendations are dynamic, so check them often. For bestsellers, a weekly review is a sensible minimum, with a daily glance at days of supply. Slower products can be reviewed less often, as long as you still audit your stock records at least once or twice a year.
Why does Amazon recommend a quantity that seems too high or too low?
The tool works from your sales history, forecast, seasonality and the settings you enter, including lead times. If those settings are out of date, the quantity will be off. Update your product-level lead times and replenishment frequency, then compare the result with your own reorder point.
Can I get a back-in-stock alert as a shopper?
Yes. Shoppers can add an out-of-stock item to their Wish List, which can trigger notifications when availability changes. This article is written for sellers, so the steps above apply to managing your own inventory instead.
