A backorder is a customer order placed for a product that is currently out of stock, which you fulfill once new inventory arrives. The customer buys now and waits for delivery. Backorders let a business capture demand it cannot immediately fill, but they depend on the customer being willing to wait, and they carry the risk of cancellations and disappointment if the restock is delayed.
Can you backorder on Amazon FBA?
No. With FBA, once your inventory at Amazon reaches zero, the offer stops being available and customers cannot buy it at all; there is no backorder. You lose the sale and the listing's momentum until you restock. This is why FBA sellers focus on never hitting zero, because unlike some sales channels, FBA does not let you capture the order and fulfill it later.
Andrew Erickson is the founder of Inventory Hero. He has spent years working with Amazon FBA sellers on demand forecasting, restock planning, and the cash flow side of running a private-label brand. Inventory Hero exists because every spreadsheet-based inventory system he tried eventually broke — usually right before Q4.
A stockout is simply being out of inventory. A backorder is a way of still taking the order during a stockout, promising to ship when you restock. On FBA a stockout means lost sales because backorders are not possible; on a seller-fulfilled or direct channel, you can sometimes convert a stockout into a backorder by letting customers buy with a longer delivery time, capturing demand you would otherwise lose.
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A backorder is a customer order for an item that is out of stock, which you fulfill once new inventory arrives. The short version: it lets you capture demand you cannot immediately fill, but on Amazon FBA it is not an option (zero stock means the offer disappears), and even where it is possible it is a symptom of a stockout you would rather have prevented. This is a practical overview for FBA sellers. Below is what a backorder is, how Amazon handles it, and why prevention beats reliance.
A backorder happens when a customer wants to buy something you are temporarily out of, and instead of losing the sale, you let them order now for delivery once you restock. It is a promise: buy today, receive when the new stock lands.
The appeal is obvious. Rather than turning demand away during a gap, you capture the order and fulfill it late. The catch is equally clear: it only works if the customer is willing to wait, and every extra day of waiting raises the odds of a cancellation or a frustrated buyer. A backorder is a way to soften a stockout, not a substitute for having stock.
This is the part that matters most for Amazon sellers: FBA has no backorder mechanism. When your inventory at Amazon's warehouses reaches zero:
The offer stops being available. Customers cannot buy it, at any delivery date.
You lose the sale entirely, not just the timing of it.
The listing loses momentum. Sales velocity and ranking slip while you are out, and recovery takes time after you restock.
There is no way to say "buy now, I will ship when my container clears customs." The demand during your stockout is simply gone. This is exactly why FBA sellers obsess over never hitting zero, because the channel gives you no way to catch the orders you miss.
Seller-fulfilled (FBM) listings have more flexibility, but it is a double-edged tool. You can keep an FBM offer live while out of stock by extending your handling time, effectively taking orders you will ship once restocked. That captures demand FBA would lose, but it carries real risk:
Late shipment metrics. If you cannot ship within the handling time you promised, your late-dispatch and cancellation metrics suffer, which can threaten your account health.
Customer disappointment. A long wait on a marketplace where fast delivery is the norm leads to cancellations and negative feedback.
Overselling. Taking orders you then cannot fulfill on time is worse than the stockout itself.
As a practical range, many sellers extend handling time to about 14 to 21 days, which buys a real restock window while keeping late-dispatch risk manageable (Amazon tracks a late-shipment rate with a 4 percent threshold, so you must actually ship within the time you promise). Pushing much past 30 days tends to drive cancellations faster than your restock arrives, so it stops helping. Used carefully, with a handling time you can genuinely hit, FBM backordering can bridge a short gap. Used loosely, it damages the metrics that keep your account healthy.
Backorders are not always a failure. In some models they are the plan:
Pre-orders for a launch or a new product, where customers knowingly buy ahead of availability.
Made-to-order items with a stated lead time the customer accepts up front.
High-demand, supply-constrained products where buyers will wait because the alternative is not getting it at all.
In these cases the wait is expected and communicated, which is what makes it work. The problems come when a backorder is an unplanned scramble to cover a stockout you did not see coming, with customers who expected immediate delivery.
Even where backorders are possible, leaning on them is expensive:
Cancellations. Every day of delay loses some buyers who will not wait.
Reputation. Repeated waits teach customers your product is unreliable to get.
Ranking and momentum. On Amazon especially, the lost velocity during the gap hurts your organic position well beyond the missed orders.
Put rough numbers on it: in a 10-day restock gap, a backorder pipeline that would have captured 100 orders might lose 20 to cancellation at a 20 percent drop-off, leaving 80 late sales. Worse, the velocity loss during that gap commonly depresses your organic rank for two to four weeks after you restock, so the damage outlasts the gap itself. A backorder recovers a fraction of a stockout's cost; it does not erase it. The math almost always favors preventing the stockout over managing the backorder, which is why the effort belongs upstream.
Because a backorder is a symptom, the durable fix is inventory planning that keeps you in stock:
Set a reorder point that accounts for your full lead time, so you reorder with time to spare.
Hold safety stock against demand spikes and supplier delays.
Watch velocity and days of supply so a looming stockout is visible weeks out, not the day it happens.
Calculate both with the reorder point and safety stock calculators, and you turn backorders into a rare edge case rather than a recurring rescue, which on FBA, where the backorder does not even exist, is the only real strategy.
A backorder is an order for an out-of-stock item filled when you restock, and it is a way to soften a stockout, not avoid its cost. On FBA there is no backorder at all, hitting zero simply loses the sale and the ranking; on FBM you can bridge a gap by extending handling time, at real risk to your metrics. Reserve deliberate backorders for pre-orders and made-to-order models, and otherwise prevent the stockout with a solid reorder point and safety stock. For the full cost of running out, see the cost of a stockout; for the whole system, Amazon FBA stockout prevention.