At a glance
The count of FBA ASINs whose units have been sitting in Amazon’s fulfilment centres long enough that aged-inventory surcharges are about to apply. Amazon charges an extra long-term storage surcharge on units that have aged past its threshold, on top of the normal monthly storage fee. This card is the early warning: it flags ASINs crossing into the aged-inventory band so you can sell through, discount, or remove the stock before the next billing cycle bills you twice for the privilege of holding it.
| What it counts | The number of FBA ASINs with units that have aged past Amazon’s long-term storage threshold (units in a fulfilment centre for roughly 271 days or more), so the aged-inventory surcharge is due to apply on the next storage-fee assessment. |
| Why it matters | Aged inventory is charged at a premium on top of standard monthly storage. Slow-moving units quietly become loss-making as the surcharge stacks up month after month. This is dead cash sitting in a warehouse, getting more expensive. |
| The lever | Each flagged ASIN has three exits before the fee bills: sell through faster (price down, promote, advertise), create a removal or disposal order, or stop sending more units. The card gives you the window to act. |
| FBA only | This is an FBA-specific cost. FBM inventory sits in your own warehouse and is not subject to Amazon storage fees, so it never appears here. |
| Relationship to days of cover | An ASIN with very high Days of Cover is the classic candidate to land here later: too much stock relative to its sell-through rate. |
| Marketplace scope | Counted per connected marketplace, since FBA inventory and storage billing are region-specific. |
| Time window | RT (real-time live count, refreshed on each sync) |
| Alert trigger | >0 with units aged 271+ days, driven by the inventory-forecasting detection layer. Any ASIN in the aged band is worth a removal-or-promote decision. |
| Roles | owner, finance, 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 UK homeware brand on amazon.co.uk running FBA. Reading taken on 14 Mar 26, ahead of the next monthly storage assessment.| ASIN | Units in FC | Approx age | Daily sell-through | Exit decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discontinued mug set (B0XXXXBBB1) | 480 | ~ 290 days | ~ 1 / day | Remove or dispose |
| Off-season throw (B0XXXXBBB2) | 210 | ~ 275 days | ~ 4 / day | Discount to sell through |
| Slow gift box (B0XXXXBBB3) | 95 | ~ 272 days | ~ 0.5 / day | Remove |
| ASINs Approaching Long-Term Storage (this card) | 3 | 271+ days | mixed |
- The mug set will never sell through in time. At roughly one unit a day, 480 units take well over a year to clear. Holding them means paying the aged surcharge every month for the entire run. A removal or disposal order is almost certainly cheaper than the cumulative fees.
- The throw is worth discounting, not removing. At four units a day, a sharper price or a short promotion can clear 210 units before the surcharge does serious damage. The decision is per-ASIN: sell-through rate decides whether to promote or remove.
- This card and Days of Cover are linked. Every ASIN here started as a high Days of Cover reading months ago. Watching cover lets you intervene before stock ever reaches the aged band.
- Removal has a cost too. Removal and disposal orders carry their own per-unit fees, so the maths is “fee to remove now” versus “surcharge to keep holding”. For genuinely dead stock, removing early almost always wins.
- The alert fires at one. Because the threshold is
>0, any ASIN entering the aged band surfaces. The point is to act inside the window before the next assessment bills you.
>0, this reading of 3 trips the alert, and Vortex IQ Nerve Centre flags the ASINs with their ages so finance and operations can pick remove-or-promote per SKU before the storage cycle closes.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Aged-storage risk is an inventory-and-cost decision. These cards complete the picture:| Card | Why pair it with ASINs Approaching Long-Term Storage |
|---|---|
| Days of Cover (avg) | The upstream signal. ASINs with very high cover today are tomorrow’s aged-storage problem. Watch cover to intervene early. |
| Stranded Inventory Value | The other slice of dead FBA cash: units that cannot sell because the listing is broken. Both tie up capital in a fulfilment centre. |
| FBA Storage Fees | The cost this card is trying to contain. Aged surcharges show up here as the bill grows. |
| Sell-Through Rate (FBA) | The metric that tells you whether discounting will clear an ASIN before the surcharge, or whether removal is the only sensible exit. |
| Replenishment Recommendations | The other end of the inventory cycle. Reading both stops you replenishing an ASIN that is already over-stocked into the aged band. |
Reconciling against Amazon Seller Central
Where to look in Seller Central: The closest native view is:Seller Central → Inventory → FBA Inventory, then the Inventory Age report (also called the FBA inventory age or aged-inventory view). It shows units bucketed by how long they have been in a fulfilment centre, including the bands that attract the long-term surcharge.The Inventory Planning dashboard and the storage-fee estimate also surface aged-inventory exposure, and the Manage Excess Inventory tool lists removal and discount recommendations per ASIN. Timing and reporting-lag table:
| Topic | Detail |
|---|---|
| Age buckets | Amazon reports inventory age in bands. The aged-inventory surcharge applies once units cross the long-term threshold. The card flags ASINs entering that band so you can act before the next assessment. |
| Assessment timing | Amazon assesses storage and aged-storage fees on a monthly cycle. The card’s value is the lead time before that assessment, not after. |
| Refresh cadence | The Inventory Age report updates on Amazon’s schedule. Vortex IQ reads it on each sync, so the card may differ from Seller Central by the sync interval. |
| Removal lead time | A removal or disposal order takes time to process and ship out. Start it well before the assessment date, since units still in the FC on the assessment day are billed. |
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Age-band boundary | Possible small gap at the edge | An ASIN sitting right on the threshold day can flip between in-band and not-yet depending on the exact snapshot time. Read the unit ages to confirm. |
| Sync interval | Ours can lag | Seller Central updates on its own report schedule; the card reflects the last sync. |
| Removal in flight | Ours may still count it | If you have started a removal but units have not left the FC, both Amazon and the card may still count the ASIN until it physically ships. |
| Marketplace filter | Mismatch if regions differ | Ensure both views are scoped to the same marketplace before comparing. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.inventory | Independent inventory pools. FBA units are physically in Amazon’s network; your Shopify stock is in your own or a 3PL warehouse. Aged-storage risk is an FBA-only concept. | If you use the same SKU across both channels, your DTC sell-through can still help you clear the equivalent stock, but it does not reduce the FBA units already aged in Amazon’s FCs. |
channel-mix-amazon-vs-dtc | Demand context. If Amazon’s share of an SKU’s demand is shrinking, over-stocking it into FBA is what creates aged inventory. | A deliberate channel shift toward DTC explains why FBA units are aging; the fix is to send fewer units to FBA next time. |