wiki/knowledge/ecommerce-strategy/doudlah-farms-sellerize-inventory-management.md · 992 words · 2026-04-05

Doudlah Farms: Daily Sellerize Inventory Review Process

Overview

Following a severe inventory stockout crisis in December/January that caused Doodla's ROAS to drop from ~$4.00 to $3.28 and YoY profit to decline, the team established a daily inventory monitoring process using Sellerize's inventory export. The core insight: inventory availability is a prerequisite for all other marketing activity. Running ads against out-of-stock ASINs is pure waste, and recovering lost Amazon ranking after a stockout is slow and expensive.

"We need to watch this inventory like it's the most important thing in the world. If we see something getting a little bit low, we need to deal with it. Because it takes time — by the time they prepare it, by the time they get it packaged and shipped, it takes weeks." — Mark Hope

The Process

Step 1: Pull the Sellerize Inventory Export Daily

In Sellerize, navigate to Inventory (document icon in the left sidebar).
Click the Export button in the center of the screen.
Select Export at the top to download the CSV/spreadsheet.

Key columns to review:

Column	Purpose
Days Left	Primary signal — days of inventory remaining at current sales velocity
Available Stock	Units currently fulfillable at FBA
Total Stock	Available + reserved + inbound
Daily Avg Units (30-day)	Recent sales velocity
Daily Avg Units (90-day)	Longer-term velocity for trend comparison
Units Sold (30-day / 90-day)	If 30-day > 90-day, the product is growing

Note: The Sellerize export does not currently include inbound shipment detail. Cross-reference with the FBA Inventory and AWD Reports worksheets (which contain hidden columns) to get a complete picture of in-transit stock.

Step 2: Triage by Days Left Threshold

Apply the following decision rules to every active ASIN:

Days Left	Action
< 40–50 days	🚨 Ship immediately. Create an FBA shipment today. Do not wait.
50–100 days	✅ Monitor. No action required unless velocity is accelerating.
> 100 days	🏷️ Run a coupon or sale to accelerate sell-through and avoid long-term storage fees.
~600+ days	🔥 Urgent promotion needed. Consider deep discount or bundle. (e.g., 25 lb Cranberry Beans)

Step 3: Check Total Stock Before Panicking

A low Available number does not always mean a crisis. Always check Total Stock and inbound context:

If Available = 15 but Total = 217, there are ~200 units inbound — likely fine.
If Available = 0 and Total = 2 with nothing inbound — this is an emergency (e.g., 1 lb Cranberry Beans).

Step 4: Flag and Communicate

Gilbert and Carly both review the report daily.
Any ASIN below the 40–50 day threshold is flagged immediately to the team.
Coordinate with the warehouse/supplier to initiate shipment the same day the flag is raised.

Data Hygiene Requirements

The Sellerize inventory list is only useful if it reflects real, active ASINs. Maintain the following:

Delete unused/parent ASINs from both Sellerize and Seller Central. Parent ASINs hold no inventory and distort the report. Bundles and discontinued products should also be removed.
Consolidate duplicate ASINs. Example: Doodla had two Yellow Cornmeal ASINs. The strategy is to sell out the legacy ASIN while shipping all new stock to the primary FBA ASIN. Advertising should run only on the primary ASIN.
Integrate key Sellerize fields (Days Left, 30-day velocity, 90-day velocity, Available, Total) into the main inventory Google Sheet for a single source of truth.

Shipping Strategy: Direct to FBA (AWD Abandoned)

As of this review, all future shipments go directly to FBA. The AWD (Amazon Warehousing & Distribution) program was abandoned because:

AWD was not auto-transferring inventory to FBA as designed.
AWD was incorrectly flagging inventory as expired, requiring manual intervention and submission of expiration dates to Amazon agents.
Manual transfers from AWD to FBA introduced dangerous delays.

Trade-off: Shipping directly to FBA is more expensive because Amazon requires multi-destination shipments (e.g., one pallet of black beans split across five fulfillment centers). The mitigation is to ship more frequently in smaller quantities rather than large pallets, which keeps inventory levels stable without over-committing to any single shipment.

For top 5–6 fastest-moving products, pallet-sized shipments remain appropriate due to velocity.

Relationship to Advertising

Inventory status directly gates advertising decisions:

If an ASIN is out of stock → pause its ads immediately. Running Amazon Sponsored Products against a stockout burns budget with zero return and does not help ranking recovery.
After a stockout, ranking recovery is slow. Amazon's algorithm deprioritizes listings that went out of stock. Recovering requires increasing bids (which compresses ROAS) over an extended period. Prevention is far cheaper than recovery.

Roles & Responsibilities

Person	Responsibility
Gilbert Barrongo	Pull and review Sellerize export daily; flag low-inventory ASINs; initiate FBA shipments; coordinate with Carly
Carly	Daily review of inventory report; escalate issues to Gilbert and Mark
Mark Hope	Delete unused/parent ASINs from Seller Central; strategic oversight

[ ] Check Sellerize daily; ship FBA for <50 days; create coupons for >100 days — @Gilbert Barrongo
[ ] Delete unused/parent ASINs in Seller Central — @Mark Hope
[ ] Delete unused/parent ASINs in Sellerize — @Gilbert Barrongo
[ ] Update inventory Google Sheet with Sellerize fields including inbound/reserved — @Gilbert Barrongo
[ ] Ship 1 lb Cranberry Beans to FBA immediately — @Gilbert Barrongo
[ ] Manually transfer all available AWD inventory to FBA — @Gilbert Barrongo
[ ] Provide Amazon with expiration dates for all flagged "expired" inventory — @Gilbert Barrongo