Faced with merchandise shortages in the United States and Europe due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, Amazon has instituted sweeping changes on which products it will store and ship from its warehouses over the next three weeks, in a move it said was aimed at keeping essential items in stock and speeding up orders.
Early Tuesday morning, Amazon said it would be “temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock and deliver these products to customers.”
By “prioritizing,” Amazon means it will no longer accept new shipments to its warehouses for discretionary items through April 5. During that time, Amazon will continue to sell all types of products on its websites, but sellers listing discretionary items will have to store and ship them on their own if they aren’t already in, or on their way to, an Amazon warehouse as of Tuesday.
The company said most of the products it was still accepting from third-party sellers and wholesale vendors fall into one of six categories: baby products, health and household, beauty and personal care, grocery, industrial and scientific, and pet supplies. The messages were sent to third-party sellers who store goods in Amazon warehouses through the Fulfillment by Amazon program, as well as wholesale vendors who sell goods directly to Amazon, which then resells those goods to customers.
“We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result, some products, such as household staples and medical supplies, are out of stock,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
“We understand this is a change for our selling partners and appreciate their understanding as we temporarily prioritize these products for customers,” the spokesperson added.
With governments across the globe recommending and even mandating that people stay inside during the pandemic, more shoppers are turning to Amazon to stock up rather than visiting brick-and-mortar stores. But the rush of shopping in select categories has meant frequent out-of-stock messages for items ranging from hand sanitizer and hand soap to face masks, as well as sellers taking advantage of low supply by attempting to price-gouge customers.
Amazon will be making good money during this crisis. It would be nice if they donated towards helping, somehow. I see a lot of small businesses and artists trying to support each other. They don’t have a lot of reserves to begin with.
