You Can Still Order Whatever You Want on Amazon
If you’re having trouble finding essentials like toilet paper and hand soap at your local grocery store or supermarket, you may have found some solace on the internet. At least you can still order home furnishings online to have at your door, right? We may not be able to hang out in large groups, but these Amazon vans still ply our neighborhoods.
But Amazon’s recent limited supply reports may lead you to wonder if you can still buy the essentials (or non-essential items of your choice) from the e-commerce giant.
Amazon announced that it is suspending shipments of certain products to its warehouses. But at the moment it has little effect on what you can order or when you can order it.
Here’s what Amazon said in a blog post this week about shipping priorities:
As COVID-19 has spread recently, we have seen an increase in the number of people shopping online, which has impacted the way we serve our customers. Therefore, in the short term, we are making the decision to temporarily prioritize household items, medical supplies, and other high-demand items entering our fulfillment centers so that we can receive, restock, and ship those items to customers faster. We are working with our channel partners around the clock to ensure the availability of these core products and continue to build additional capacity to deliver customer orders.
Amazon sellers who ship their items to Amazon so that Amazon can then ship them to customers have been asked to defer shipping new inventory until early April unless it falls into multiple categories, according to a note received by AdAge . Detergents, medical supplies, and food are the main exceptions to the rule.
Non-essential items that have already been submitted by sellers to Amazon will be accepted and sold as usual. Sellers who ship their own items do not currently face any restrictions.
If you were planning to buy a baseball glove or laptop from Amazon, you may find that there are fewer options. But Amazon is unlikely to run out of nonessential items while it rushes to stockpile the items that are in the highest demand. Along with shipping items from third-party sellers, Amazon also sells and ships large quantities of its own inventory.
Amazon is hiring in a warehouse to try and satisfy the influx of orders from people stuck near their homes in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the company recommends that consumers choose the slower shipping option whenever possible: “Choosing an option without rushing allows us to consolidate orders and make fewer stops in the vicinity during the week and, most importantly, serve customers with the most critical needs. first, ”reads the Amazon blog.