Amazon moderators acknowledged the company restricted some FBA listings on a regional basis after sellers reported the issue on the Amazon discussion boards. A reader told EcommerceBytes last month, “The problem involves a system glitch in Amazon’s FBA buy-ability logic that makes products completely unavailable in large portions of the United States even when the items are in stock, active, and fully compliant.”
One seller reported the problem in a thread posted on September 10 titled, “Extremely Weird Issue, FBA product restricted from specific zip codes, but not FBM offer.” They wrote, “The worst part is that there’s no easy way to tell what other listings are affected. When you are looking through the “Manage Inventory” page, both the FBM & FBA have the green check for “Featured offer.””
In this follow-up comment on the thread, the seller shared screenshots that showed the ASIN wasn’t available in Miami, NYC or Chicago, but was available in Los Angeles CA, Austin TX. On September 17, an Amazon moderator confirmed they could replicate the problem.
The reader who experienced the same issue as described by others in Amazon forum threads said they had discovered “purely by chance” that one of their top FBA ASINs was unavailable for purchase in numerous U.S. ZIP codes – and the issue spread to additional ASINs.
The issue only impacted FBA offers in certain regions, the seller said, adding that the glitch had caused:
- A severe drop in sales. One ASIN that used to sell 150 to 300 units per month is now struggling to sell 5 units per month.
- Inability to replenish FBA inventory because sales volume has fallen below Amazon’s restock limits.
- Imminent risk of long term storage fees for inventory that customers are unable to purchase.
- No clear guidance from Amazon on how to fix or avoid the issue.
It appeared the issue was cleared up in mid-November, but the nature of the problem is troubling. In an update on the discussion board thread on November 24, the seller said Amazon seller support told them the following:
“Our technical teams have confirmed that your ASIN is no longer affected by the region related restriction. The issue has been resolved as of November 15, 2025, when your products were de-regionalized from an experimental program that we are still investigating. Your listings should now be properly visible across all US regions.”
“The issue has been resolved” sounds like Amazon considered the case a glitch.
But “regionalizing” items from an “experimental” program sounds like Amazon was exploring ways to intentionally restrict FBA items from showing as available in all zip codes.
It’s also troubling that sellers said they just happened to notice the problem – it’s unclear how widespread the issue was, and the long-lasting impact on sellers – such as whether they will incur long-term storage fees on listings not visible to all shoppers.
