Replenishment Recommendations, Amazon Seller Central

Replenishment Recommendations for Amazon Seller Central. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Inventory Forecasting

At a glance

A per-SKU reorder worksheet. For each SKU it shows current stock, recent sales velocity, days of cover, a suggested replenish quantity, and a lead-time-aware reorder date. The card exists to stop two expensive failures at once: stocking out (which kills rank and Buy Box) and over-sending (which racks up long-term storage fees). It is a working list operations runs against, not a single headline number.

What it shows	A table, one row per active SKU. Columns: current available stock, 30D sales velocity (units/day), days of cover at that velocity, suggested replenish quantity, and a reorder-by date that accounts for your supplier and inbound lead time.
Velocity basis	Recent (commonly trailing 30D) units sold per day per SKU. Fast movers and seasonal spikes shorten days of cover; slow movers lengthen it.
Days of cover	Available units ÷ daily velocity. A SKU with 300 units selling 20/day has 15 days of cover. This is the trigger metric: when cover drops toward your lead time, it is reorder time.
Suggested quantity	A target-cover calculation: enough to carry you through lead time plus a safety buffer, net of what is already inbound or in transit. The card aims to keep you in stock without overshooting into long-term storage territory.
Lead-time-aware reorder date	Counts back from projected stockout by your inbound lead time so the recommended ship date leaves enough runway for manufacturing, freight, and Amazon receiving / check-in.
Fulfilment scope	Primarily FBA, where Amazon holds the stock and stockouts directly hit rank and Buy Box. FBM SKUs can be included where stock data is available.
Relationship to other inventory cards	This card is the action list; Days of Cover (avg) and ASINs Stocking Out <7 Days are the alerts that tell you to come here.
Time window	RT (real time, refreshed continuously)
Alert trigger	Configurable, typically when SKUs cross the reorder-by date
Roles	owner, operations

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Amazon Seller Central data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

A health-and-household FBA seller reviewing the worksheet on 14 Apr 26. Inbound lead time is 21 days (10 days manufacturing + 7 days freight + 4 days Amazon check-in). Figures are illustrative.

SKU	Available	30D velocity (units/day)	Days of cover	Inbound	Suggested replenish	Reorder by
Bestseller A	420	38	11	0	1,600	reorder now (overdue)
Steady B	900	15	60	0	0	39 days out
Seasonal C (ramping)	260	22	12	500	300	reorder in 1 day
Slow mover D	1,200	3	400	0	0	do not reorder

Bestseller A: 11 days cover < 21 day lead time  =>  will stock out before a fresh PO can land.
              Reorder date is already in the past. This SKU is the priority.
Seasonal C:   500 units inbound, but velocity is ramping; cover is 12 days and the
              inbound will not fully de-risk the ramp, so a top-up of 300 is suggested.
Slow mover D: 400 days of cover. Reordering would create long-term storage exposure.
              The card suggests zero and flags it for the stranded/aged-inventory review instead.

Four things to notice:

1. Days of cover below lead time is the red line. Bestseller A has 11 days of cover against a 21-day lead time. No matter how fast you act, it will stock out before replenishment lands. This is exactly the SKU that drops in rank and loses Buy Box during the gap. It is the top of the worklist.
2. Inbound stock is netted out. Seasonal C already has 500 units in transit, so the suggested quantity is a top-up (300), not a full reorder. The card avoids double-ordering by counting what is already on the way.
3. Slow movers are told to wait. Slow mover D has 400 days of cover. Reordering it would pile up long-term storage fees. The card suggests zero and pushes it toward the Stranded Inventory Value and aged-stock workflow.
4. The reorder date does the planning for you. Each row counts back from projected stockout by the 21-day lead time, so “reorder by” is the latest safe ship date. Anything showing “now” or “overdue” is already at risk.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

This card is the action list. These tell you when to use it and what the consequences of inaction are:

Card	Why pair it with Replenishment Recommendations
Days of Cover (avg)	The portfolio-level summary. When average cover trends down, expect more rows here to flip to “reorder now”.
ASINs Stocking Out <7 Days	The urgent end of this worksheet. Any SKU here is past the point a normal reorder can save, escalate to expedited freight.
Sell-Through Rate (FBA)	Tells you whether suggested quantities are right-sized. Low sell-through means you are over-sending; the card should suggest less.
Stranded Inventory Value	The cost of over-replenishing. Slow movers flagged “do not reorder” feed this card if stock is already too high.
ASINs Approaching Long-Term Storage	The downstream risk of ignoring the “do not reorder” signal on slow movers.
Estimated Revenue Lost to Buy-Box Loss	Stockouts are a leading cause of Buy Box loss. Acting on this card protects the Buy Box and the revenue it carries.

Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central

Where to look in Seller Central:

The closest Amazon-native views are:

Inventory → Inventory Planning → Restock Inventory for Amazon’s own restock suggestions and days-of-supply, and Inventory → FBA Inventory for current available, inbound, and reserved quantities per SKU.

Amazon’s Restock Inventory tool produces its own suggested quantities. Expect the Vortex IQ numbers to be in the same ballpark but not identical: the two tools use different velocity windows, safety-stock assumptions, and lead-time inputs.

Timing, settlement, and reporting-lag table:

Topic	Detail
Available vs reserved	Amazon splits inventory into available, reserved (in a customer’s basket or pending removal), and inbound. Days of cover uses available stock; a large reserved pool can make true sellable cover lower than it appears.
Velocity window	The card uses a recent trailing window. Amazon’s Restock tool may weight differently, so days-of-supply figures can diverge even with the same stock count.
Lead time input	The reorder date depends on the lead time you configure. If your real supplier lead time differs from the assumed value, the recommended dates shift accordingly.
Inbound reconciliation	Units in transit and pending check-in are netted from the suggested quantity. Receiving delays at Amazon can leave inbound stock uncounted as available for several days.

Why our number may legitimately differ from Seller Central:

Reason	Direction	Why
Different velocity window	Either direction	Amazon’s Restock tool and Vortex IQ may use different trailing windows, producing different days-of-supply and suggested quantities.
Safety-stock assumption	Ours may suggest more or less	Amazon bakes in its own buffer; the card uses its own target cover. The gap is intentional, both are estimates.
Lead-time configuration	Reorder date shifts	If the configured lead time differs from Amazon’s assumed lead time, reorder dates and quantities diverge.
Seasonality handling	Diverges on ramps	A ramping seasonal SKU is forecast differently by different models; expect the largest gaps on items with changing velocity.

Cross-connector reconciliation against other connectors the same seller may run:

Card	Expected relationship	What causes legitimate divergence
amazon.days_of_cover_avg	Same engine, different altitude. The average days of cover is the portfolio roll-up of the per-SKU cover shown in this worksheet.	The average can look healthy while a few critical bestsellers are individually about to stock out. Always read the worksheet, not just the average.
shopify inventory cards	Shared physical stock if pooled. A seller who fulfils both Amazon and a DTC store from one warehouse must not double-commit the same units.	If FBA stock and DTC stock are separate pools, the cards are independent. If pooled, reconcile total on-hand against both demand streams.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

How is the suggested quantity worked out? It targets enough cover to carry you through your inbound lead time plus a safety buffer, then subtracts what is already in stock and inbound. The aim is to keep you in stock without overshooting into long-term storage. It is a recommendation, not an order, you confirm quantities against your own cash and supplier minimums.

Why does it sometimes say “do not reorder”? Because the SKU has far more cover than it can sell before incurring long-term storage fees. Over-sending slow movers is as expensive as stocking out fast movers, just in a different way. The card protects you from both.

Why doesn’t this match Amazon’s Restock Inventory tool exactly? Different velocity windows, safety-stock assumptions, and lead-time inputs. Both are estimates. Use them as two opinions; where they agree, act with confidence; where they differ, the gap is usually seasonality or a lead-time assumption.

Does it account for stock already on the way? Yes. Inbound and in-transit units are netted out of the suggested quantity so you do not double-order. If Amazon is slow to check inbound stock in, that inbound may briefly look uncounted.

Does it cover FBM SKUs? Primarily FBA, where stockouts hit rank and Buy Box hardest and where Amazon reports stock cleanly. FBM SKUs can appear where stock data is available, but the reorder logic is most reliable for FBA.

What happens if I ignore the reorder-by date? The SKU is projected to stock out before a fresh PO can land. Stockouts drop search rank, surrender the Buy Box, and waste any ad spend pointed at the listing. The downstream damage shows in Estimated Revenue Lost to Buy-Box Loss and Revenue at Risk (live).

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Replenishment Recommendations is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Amazon Seller Central and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

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