Doudlah Farms: AWD Program Failure & Direct FBA Shipping Strategy
Overview
In early 2026, Asymmetric made the decision to abandon Amazon's AWD (Amazon Warehousing & Distribution) program for Doodla Farms and shift all future inventory shipments directly to FBA fulfillment centers. This decision followed months of AWD failures that caused critical stockouts across top-selling products, a measurable ROAS decline, and year-over-year profit erosion.
This article documents the root cause analysis, the decision rationale, and the operational strategy that replaced AWD.
Background: How AWD Was Supposed to Work
AWD was adopted as a cost-efficient bulk storage solution. The intended workflow:
- Ship large quantities (pallets) to a single AWD warehouse at lower cost
- Amazon's automated system monitors FBA inventory levels
- When FBA stock runs low, Amazon auto-transfers units from AWD to the appropriate FBA fulfillment centers
This model was attractive because direct FBA shipments require splitting inventory across multiple fulfillment centers (Amazon determines the destinations), making them significantly more expensive and logistically complex.
What Went Wrong
AWD failed on both of its core promises:
1. Auto-Transfer Not Functioning
Amazon's system stopped automatically replenishing FBA from AWD stock. Units sat in AWD warehouses while FBA inventory for products like Cranberry Beans and Great Northern Beans hit zero. Gilbert was forced to manually initiate transfers — a workaround that introduced delays and required direct Amazon agent contact.
"I talked to an Amazon agent yesterday… I told them why is it that Amazon is not actually automatically transferring the units from AWD to FBA. So what I did was to manually transfer the inventory from AWD to FBA."
— Gilbert Barrongo
2. Incorrect Expired Inventory Flagging
Amazon flagged AWD inventory as expired despite products having valid expiration dates (October of the current year). Amazon's resolution process required Doodla to manually submit expiration dates for every affected listing — a significant administrative burden that further delayed restocking.
"The instruction from Amazon agent is to submit to them the expiration date for these listings… I gave them the expiration date for this year, October."
— Gilbert Barrongo
Business Impact
The AWD failures cascaded into significant financial damage:
| Metric | Impact |
|---|---|
| ROAS | Dropped from ~$4.00 to $3.28 |
| YoY Profit | Down despite higher overall sales volume |
| Top SKU Sales | Yellow Cornmeal, Popcorn, Black Beans all declined sharply |
| Amazon Ranking | Lost organic rank during stockout period; recovery is slow due to Amazon's attribution model |
The sales trajectory had been strong through mid-2025 before falling sharply in December. As Mark noted, once you run out of inventory on Amazon, regaining lost rank and sales velocity is a slow, expensive process — requiring increased bids that further compress ROAS.
Decision: Abandon AWD, Ship Directly to FBA
Effective immediately, all Doodla Farms shipments will go directly to FBA.
Trade-offs Accepted
| Factor | AWD | Direct FBA |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Lower (single destination) | Higher (multi-destination splits) |
| Reliability | Proven unreliable | Reliable |
| Control | Dependent on Amazon automation | Full control over timing |
| Complexity | Simple inbound | Multiple shipment plans required |
The higher cost of direct FBA shipping is accepted as necessary. The cost of stockouts — lost rank, lost revenue, compressed ROAS, and recovery spend — far exceeds the incremental shipping cost.
Operational Adjustments
Because direct FBA requires multi-destination shipments, the team will adapt by:
- Shipping more frequently in smaller quantities for slower-moving SKUs (e.g., 10–20 boxes per shipment)
- Shipping pallets only for the top 5–6 fastest-moving products where volume justifies it
- Never allowing inventory to fall below the 40–50 day threshold before initiating a new shipment (see [1])
Immediate Remediation Actions
The following actions were assigned to address the existing AWD backlog:
- [ ] Manually transfer all available AWD inventory to FBA (Gilbert)
- [ ] Submit expiration dates to Amazon for all flagged "expired" inventory (Gilbert)
- [ ] Ship 1-lb Cranberry Beans to FBA immediately — critically low stock (Gilbert)
Key Principle
"Everything else we're doing is a waste of time if we don't have any product. Advertising is a waste of time. Optimization is a waste of time. Everything's a waste of time if we don't have any product."
— Mark Hope
Inventory availability is the prerequisite for all other channel activity. Running Amazon Sponsored Products or Google Ads against out-of-stock listings wastes budget and accelerates rank decay. When stockouts are detected, the correct response is to pause advertising for affected ASINs until inventory is restored.
Related
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]