If you saw our recent interview with Eddie Levine, President of Hub Dub, you know that Amazon’s recent announcement about slashing Amazon storage fees is a deal with strings attached. In short, Amazon determines which products are eligible, and determines the stock levels you must maintain. In the face of having no real control over those inputs, only you can decide if this is worth attempting—if you’re eligible.

But, if you decide the savings are worth it to your business, you need to plan ahead—and monitor your inventory closely. The bad news? Amazon only gives you the data you need to plan once a month. The good news? We have some strategies you can use within Quantify to help bridge that gap.

Strategy #1: Use last month’s product sales cycle to calculate the current inventory you need

I hope you already do this in your regular planning, but Quantify offers an exceptional data range for inventory planning. For any product, the sales overview report can show up to two years of data to show you how the product has performed. For example, if you know that Prime Day was big for you last year, use the buying behavior from that period and calculate how much you need to meet your normal sales rate.

Then compare the information from Amazon for your eligible products’ stock levels to the stock levels you normally would maintain, and calculate the percentage increase (or decrease).

Strategy #2: Use Quantify reports to monitor your inventory rate

In the interview with Eddie, Jeff used an example ASIN where he determined the multiplier to be 1.5 times the usual stock level for that ASIN. Your numbers will definitely vary—and may even vary across products if you have more than one product that is eligible. You already know to apply that to your next month’s ordering cycle, and plan accordingly so you can batch your orders and shipments as needed.

But as the month wears on, you should consistently monitor your sales and inventory levels with the multiplier in mind. My tip: for your eligible products, take a peek at the product’s Inventory tab, and keep an eye on the lead time for the product and current quantity. Even better—you can use the Reorder Level field—set it higher to trigger the product to show up on the Restock report for you.

Strategy #3: Keep an eye on fees to see if doing the extra work to get the discount adds up

Quantify doesn’t offer a trending report for Amazon fees, but it’s worth checking out the product’s average and total Amazon fees. Before you ship the new inventory, check and benchmark numbers for the past 30 and 60 days, at least. Then monitor them through the month, and be sure you compare them after month one to see the impact the storage fee discount has made on your Amazon fees. If the reduction in fees is financially worth it—keep going! If not, you have some numbers to prove that it isn’t worth your time…for now.

Step up your inventory planning with Quantify

Avoid fees and running out of stock with metrics like Stock, Lead Time, and Projected Out for all of your products inside of Quantify. This is feature is called the Inventory Report. The goal behind Quantify is to save you time by automating complex reports—10 to be exact—so you can maximize your profits. Quantify lets you visualize your growth to give you a bird’s eye view of your business.

Don’t take my word for it: Try Quantify free for 30 days >