Amazon UK marketplace sellers are reporting an unusual surge of pending orders that leave high-value inventory trapped and unavailable to genuine buyers. The reports began around September 20, according to The Register, and affect items typically priced at £100 or more. Because Amazon deducts pending quantities from a seller's available stock and does not allow sellers to cancel the transactions, some merchants say their entire supply of certain products has been tied up.
Amazon says orders normally stay pending while it verifies a buyer's credit card or awaits approval for business purchases. But sellers describe volumes far outside normal patterns: one reported 30 pending orders in about 52 hours, with 15 tied to just seven postcodes; another saw 72 pending orders worth roughly £25,000 in three days. Some merchants suspect competitors are placing orders with insufficient funds to lock inventory, comparing the effect to a denial-of-service attack. The Register notes there is no evidence yet that the activity is malicious rather than a platform glitch.
Sellers who contacted Seller Support say they were told the activity was normal and that no other merchants had reported it, despite multiple forum threads describing the same problem. After The Register contacted Amazon, a forum message said the issue had been escalated to the company's 'partner teams' for investigation. Amazon had not provided an official statement by the time of publication.