How to plan stock for Amazon sale events (Great Indian Festival, Prime Day)

Why a single multiplier fails

Some products sell 3 times their normal rate on event days and some barely move. A gift item or a product bought on impulse jumps. A product people buy only when they need it jumps less. If you apply 2x to everything you run out of the first and are stuck with the second.

Find the multiplier per product

Start with your own history. For each product, take the units sold per day during the same event last year and divide by its normal per-day rate in the weeks before. That ratio is the multiplier. Use the most recent event of the same kind.

For a product with no history, borrow from the closest product in the same group and be careful with the first number: start lower, and plan a top-up shipment you can place at short notice.

Also keep in mind what has changed since last year: price, deals you plan to run, ad budget, and whether the listing is better placed now. Move the multiplier up or down for a reason you can write down.

Work out the stock the event needs

For each product: Normal sales per day × Multiplier × Event days × (1 + safety %). Then subtract what you have on hand and what is already inbound. The remainder is your gap. A negative gap means you have enough: do not order, and do not send extra.

Remember the days before the event too. Sales usually build as people add items to carts. Count them in your normal-rate stock plan, not in the event number.

Work back to the date stock must be sellable

Dates move every year, so check Amazon's announced dates before you plan. Then count backwards: event start date, minus a few days of buffer, minus the check-in time at the fulfilment centres, minus transit, minus your supplier time. That is the date you must place the order.

Be careful with the inbound shipments in the weeks before a big event. A heavy period at the fulfilment centres can slow check-in. Send early and in more than one shipment so a delay in one does not stop all your stock.

Ads, deals and price: tell the stock plan before you launch them

The multiplier is only as good as the plan behind it. If marketing doubles the ad budget on one product for the event, that product's multiplier goes up. If a deal is dropped at the last minute, it goes down. Ask for the list of deals, coupons and ad changes per product at least three weeks before the event and update the numbers.

Agree one date after which the plan is frozen. After that date, only emergency changes are allowed, and each one is checked against stock before it goes live. Most event stock-outs we have seen came from a late change nobody told the stock planner about.

During the event: watch the cover, daily

Check each top product's cover every day. If a product is selling faster than planned, tell the ad team before stock runs short, and consider slowing the deal or pausing ads on the product, so you do not run out on the best day.

After the event: the part most sellers skip

Sales usually dip after an event because many customers bought early. Do not read the event rate as the new normal. Reset your sales speed with a window that leaves out the event days, and cut reorders accordingly. If you overbought, stop new inbound for that product, and think about a smaller deal to clear it before storage costs add up.

Write down, per product, what the real multiplier was. Next year's plan starts from that table.