Amazon slows inventory uploads for heavy users

Just in case you didn’t receive this e-mail from Amazon Seller Support (or it was caught in your spam filter):

From Amazon.com
date Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 1:46 PM
subject Inventory uploads and listing report downloads

Greetings from Amazon.com.

In order to ensure that your inventory upload and listing report download requests are processed smoothly, our systems ensure fair allocation of resources to those requests. If the number of total requests from any account exceeds a fair share of capacity available at that time (this share is calculated dynamically, based on all concurrent requests from all sellers), we may temporarily slow down processing of requests from that account.

You can achieve optimal inventory feed and report processing performance by following the guidelines published in the Inventory Management FAQs:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200325430

In providing you with these guidelines, we hope to increase your success as a seller on Amazon.com. If you have questions about feeds or reports that are not answered in our FAQs, please don’t hesitate to contact us through our online form:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/seller-support.html

Best regards,

Amazon Seller Support

What they’re getting at (I guess) is that you won’t get to the top of the list by deleting and re-adding everything in your Open Listings report. In other words, you won’t jump to the top of the list of sellers at the same price by deleting, then adding back. It’s a trick I used to use years ago, when I still lots of mass market paperbacks listed at a penny — not because I wanted to, but because hundreds of other sellers were trying to sell the same book for a penny. I could never sell many of them because they’d get buried by newer 1-cent listings. But you could always get a few sales by deleting and re-adding in bulk.

I always figured your upload waited in a queue, and that’s why Sunday morning uploads processed fast, and Monday afternoons — when lots of other people were uploading — processed slow. But deliberately slowing down certain accounts sounds awfully complicated.

Here’s the heart of the matter, according to Amazon’s Feed Processing FAQ:

How often should I send my inventory feeds?

You only need to send your inventory feeds when: (a) you have additional items to list, (b) you need to change the details of an existing item (for example, change the Item Note), or (c) you need to delete items. It is possible to update price and quantity information in multiple feed formats. However, we recommend using the Price & Quantity format as updates are processed much faster using the Price & Quantity feed.

In general, avoid sending feeds more frequently than every 20 minutes as it will slow your feed processing. Large feeds (over 500 records), which will take longer to process, should be spaced farther apart.

Will sending my inventory feeds more frequently get me a better placement on the Offer Listing Page?

No! Placement on the Offer Listing Page is determined by the total cost (item price + shipping) paid by the buyer for your listing. To improve your placement on the Offer Listing Page, you need to adjust your prices downward using the Price & Quantity feed.