MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity)
The smallest quantity a supplier will accept on a purchase order.
Definition
MOQ, the minimum order quantity, is the smallest number of units a supplier will produce or sell on a single purchase order. Manufacturers set it to cover setup, tooling, and material costs, so it puts a hard floor on how much inventory you commit to with every replenishment, whether your demand wants that much or not.
Why MOQ matters for an FBA seller
MOQ is where clean replenishment math collides with supplier reality. Your reorder calculation might say you need 400 units to cover the next cycle, but if the factory MOQ is 1,000, you are buying 1,000. That gap turns into months of extra cover, tied-up cash, and storage exposure that the demand never asked for.
It hits new and slow SKUs hardest. A product selling 5 units a day against a 1,000-unit MOQ is carrying more than six months of inventory the moment the shipment lands, which is exactly the kind of stock that ages into the aged inventory surcharge before it sells through.
When MOQ collides with demand
There are only a few honest moves when MOQ exceeds what your velocity justifies. You can negotiate the MOQ down, often by accepting a higher per-unit price or paying a tooling fee, which can still beat carrying dead inventory. You can split the MOQ across more frequent shipments out of the supplier while keeping less in FBA at once. Or you can decide the SKU does not earn a buy at that floor at all.
The number that decides it is sell-through against holding cost. If the SKU clears the MOQ before storage fees and the aged surcharge erode the margin, the buy is fine. If it does not, the MOQ is telling you something real about whether the product is worth carrying.
How MOQ connects to your restock decisions
MOQ sets the floor on order quantity, and lead time sets the timing, so the two together define every purchase order. The planning question is never just when to reorder, it is whether the smallest order the supplier will accept fits inside the demand you can realistically forecast over the cover period.
For SKUs where MOQ forces a deep buy, the defense is forward-looking demand projection: know how many months of cover the MOQ actually represents at projected velocity, and stage the inbound (and the cash) deliberately instead of discovering the overcommitment after the units are already in a fulfillment center.
Related terms
Reorder quantities that respect your MOQ
Inventory Hero sizes each PO against your supplier MOQ and the cash you have on hand, so you order enough without over-committing.
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