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How to Avoid Long-Term Storage Fees with CDT Shipping
Time : 2026-05-23
How to Avoid Long-Term Storage Fees with CDT Shipping
Most Amazon sellers fixate on avoiding stockouts — and rightfully so. But over-shipping too early and getting slammed with Amazon’s Long-Term Storage Fees (LTSF) is just as costly.
Amazon charges LTSF on inventory sitting in FBA warehouses too long:
- 181–365 days: $0.97 per cubic foot/month
- Over 365 days: $6.90 per cubic foot (annual one-time charge)
For slow-moving stock or underperforming holiday shipments, these fees can add hundreds to thousands of dollars monthly. CDT helps you avoid both extremes: costly stockouts and wasteful LTSF.
The Root Cause of LTSF: Bad Timing
LTSF happens when inventory arrives way faster than it sells. Common scenarios:
- Holiday overstock: Shipping 90 days of inventory in September for Q4, only to have 60 days’ worth carry over into Q1
- Launch delays: Inventory lands before your listing or ads go live
- Overly optimistic demand forecasting
- Over-correcting past stockouts by shipping way too much
CDT’s Fix: Ship at the Right Time, Not Just Fast
Most forwarders only care about getting your cargo to FBA quickly. CDT cares about getting it there at the perfect time.
For every shipment, we help you nail three key things:
- Target FBA arrival window: We work backward from your projected sell-through date. For Q4, aim for Oct 15 — arriving before Sep 1 spikes LTSF risk if sales start slow.
- Optimal departure date: We calculate the exact ship date based on full door-to-door lead time plus buffer, preventing both early and late arrivals.
- Smart quantity splitting: We advise splitting large orders into multiple shipments (e.g., one in Oct, one in Nov) to cut the risk of excess stock sitting past February.
Calculate Your LTSF Risk Before Shipping
Use this simple formula to avoid surprise fees:
LTSF Risk = Unit Volume (cubic ft) × At-Risk Units × LTSF Rate
Example: You have 500 units of a product with a volume of 0.5 cubic feet each. If 200 units might sit longer than 181 days:
200 × 0.5 × $0.97 = $97/month in LTSF
For 6 months: $582. For a product with thin margins, this alone can eliminate profitability on that inventory
Balance LTSF and Stockout Risk
The goal isn’t to run on empty — it’s to optimize inventory. Get the right amount to FBA just in time to sell through before LTSF hits, plus enough safety stock to avoid gaps.
CDT helps you strike this balance with:
- Accurate, real-world lead time data
- Seasonal demand insights from 11+ years of FBA shipping
- Flexible schedules to split orders across multiple departures
[Contact CDT today to build a shipping plan that keeps your profits high and your storage fees low.]