The Latest Sign Amazon's Expecting a Big Holiday Season
Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) saw an unprecedented surge in demand starting in mid-March as consumers started to stay at home and practice social distancing. It had to suspend its "Fulfilled by Amazon" service for certain products from third-party merchants for about a month as it worked to get essential items to customers' doors.
But as it prepares for what's likely to be another record-setting holiday season, it's putting quantity restrictions in place again for third-party sellers. It's restricting warehousing to about three months' worth of sales for most items. In effect, it's dedicating most of its warehouse space to items it expects to sell during the holidays and restricting space for items that it may have to hold onto until next summer. Amazon will waive removal fees for merchants that reclaim their inventory to make room for faster selling items.
The move is another strong indication that Amazon expects to remain capacity constrained through the end of the year as it experiences surging sales. It previously announced it's making 125,000 of the new positions it added earlier this year permanent for anyone who wants to keep their job -- another sign of strength.
Source Fool.com
