Rohan Oommen on inventory management made easier
Speaker: Rohan Oommen, Vice President, Worldwide Trustworthy Shopping Experiences
Who this is for: Operations leaders, inventory planners, and growth owners who want proactive, end to end assistance on stock, pricing, and promotions.
What Rohan made real
Rohan Oommen explained inventory management: when inventory runs smoothly, growth unlocks. Seller Assistant is being tuned to understand your supply chain with more precision so you spend less time tracking and more time scaling. In his words, the assistant will alert you when a product is “close to being charged an aged inventory fee,” explain the potential cost, and offer options before fees hit. It also frames choices by outcome. You can “optimize for upfront cost, revenue, or long term impact,” then approve and let it execute.
Inventory intelligence in the trenches
Using Alpineverse’s slow moving tent, Rohan showed the loop in action. Seller Assistant flags the upcoming aged fee, provides the fee math, and proposes tactics that include promotion and price options. Riley asks for a “robust financial analysis specific to Alpineverse,” reviews the tradeoffs, then approves a sale plan. The assistant recommends an “extended promotion window that maximizes revenue” based on stated goals and carries out the setup. The value is the chain from signal to drafted action without the usual swivel between reports, spreadsheets, and tickets.
Peak plans, auto built
Rohan previewed growth features aimed at big moments. Ahead of Prime Day, the assistant “prepared a complete plan to maximize sales” by combining last year’s event performance with current search trends, demand, and category movement. You can adjust discount thresholds and ad budgets, preview sales projections, and see how different inventory decisions affect outcomes. The assistant is “equipped to manage the end to end execution,” including booking inventory shipments and building campaigns, so the plan is not just a deck. It is a schedule with actions attached
When the plan drifts
After the event, Alpineverse sees a catalog wide dip. Seller Assistant checks pricing, promotions, and spend efficiency, then suggests reducing ad spend and extending an existing promotion. Once active, it “continues to monitor performance in real time,” adjusting strategy and sending clear progress updates. The point is resilience. The same system that creates the plan is accountable for tuning it.
Actions to put in place this month
- Publish inventory guardrails. Define healthy days of cover, price floors, and triggers for promotion or removals by tier of ASIN. Tie each trigger to a preferred action so the assistant drafts the right move first.
- Turn on aged fee intercepts. Ask for alerts at 45, 60, and 80 days in each aging bucket with fee impact and the top two recovery paths per SKU.
- Connect growth calendars. Load key dates for Prime events and seasonal peaks so the assistant builds plans early with clear deadlines for inventory booking and campaign approvals.
- Decide optimization goals per SKU. For long tail items, bias to cash recovery. For hero ASINs, bias to revenue and share. The assistant’s choices get sharper when outcomes are explicit.
- Close the loop weekly. Review interventions, wins, and misses. If a tactic underperforms, capture the rule you want applied next time so plans compound.
Guardrails before you give it the wheel
- Approval gates on price and promotions until you complete two clean cycles.
- Clear floors and ceilings for discounts, bids, and daily budgets by portfolio tier.
- A single change log with the data used and the rationale behind every action.
- Preflight checks on inbound shipments so stock arrives where the plan expects it.
Evidence the plan is working
- Aged inventory exposure and monthly fees avoided
- Sell through uplift on SKUs that received interventions
- On time rate for pre event stock bookings
- Campaign efficiency during and after peak events
- Cycle time from risk alert to approved action
Where ZonHack helps without noise
We can set the guardrails that make Seller Assistant smarter on day one, wire aged fee intercepts with clear playbooks, and align event calendars so plans start early and finish on time. If you want a steady cadence, we run the weekly loop that reviews interventions and updates the rules so each month learns from the last. Keep it in house if you prefer. The checklist above will get you moving.
The thread across sessions
Mary Beth raised the floor on PDP quality. Jay showed creative that learns while you scale. Chris put an operator on your desk through Seller Assistant. Claire turned policy into guidance that travels with your work. Rohan connected it to the supply chain and growth calendar so inventory funds the plan and the plan adjusts itself. The theme is the same. Less time between signal and action, with controls that keep you safe. Coming up next….
Keri Cusick
Perfect Order Experience, using data and analytics to spot defects and improve customer outcomes.
