Trusting your brand’s financial health to a manual spreadsheet is a high-stakes gamble. Between Amazon’s reserve holds and regional fee variations, one small data entry error can completely distort your cash flow forecast.

Amazon AI inventory management promises to predict demand, optimize reorder points, and prevent stockouts automatically. The reality is more complex.

Amazon stranded inventory is stock sitting in FBA warehouses that customers cannot buy.

What works for a side hustle selling 20 items a month will not work when you hit 200 orders a week.

Your Amazon dashboard shows 500 units in stock, but customers can only buy 320. The other 180 units are reserved, stuck in pending orders, unfulfillable status, or FC transfer limbo.

FBA sellers lose 1–3% of annual revenue to unreimbursed inventory errors. For a business generating $2 million in FBA sales, that's $20,000–$60,000 left on the table.