Amazon sellers watch as inventory vanishes into pending-order purgatory

Amazon sellers are reporting a surge of pending orders that are stalling their inventory and obstructing genuine customers from purchasing affected items. Sellers on Amazon's UK platform have taken to Seller Central forums, expressing alarm over an unusually high volume of pending orders, many of which involve high-value products priced at £100 ($132) or more.

The issue first emerged on September 20, and within a few days, some vendors reported that their entire stock of certain high-value products had been trapped in pending orders that were not clearing.

Amazon defines an order as pending while it processes and verifies the purchase. During this period, the quantity ordered is deducted from the seller's available inventory, and sellers are unable to cancel the transaction themselves. Amazon states that orders typically remain pending when they cannot authorize the buyer's credit card or, in the case of business purchases, while they await the customer's approval.

Some merchants speculate that this could be a deliberate tactic where bogus orders reserve stock without completing payment, thereby preventing legitimate customers from buying the item. They liken the situation to a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, though there is no concrete evidence yet to suggest that the activity is malicious.

Sellers are observing activity far beyond their usual patterns, with some cases exceeding double or triple their typical weekly order volume. One seller reported receiving 30 pending orders in approximately 52 hours, including 15 orders tied to just seven delivery postcodes. Another vendor experienced 72 pending orders worth around £25,000 in a three-day period, raising concerns that competitors might be using fraudulent cards without sufficient funds to disrupt their inventory.

Many sellers have found multiple forum threads discussing the same problem, expressing frustration when Seller Support treated the activity as routine and claimed no other merchants had reported it.

The issue was raised with Amazon after a reader alerted the reporter to the complaints. A forum message posted several hours after the reporter contacted Amazon indicated that the issue had been escalated to the company's partner teams for investigation, though it is unclear if this response was coincidental. The reporter asked Amazon what was causing the pending orders and whether it considered the activity malicious. However, as of the publication time, Amazon had not provided an official statement.