Amazon split the meltable FBA reopening—route every ASIN by date

Amazon did not reopen meltable FBA inventory with one date. It published two send dates, two customer-ready dates, and a product-type boundary that can change which purchase order moves first.

The first gate arrives in two days. Coated and pectin gummies, protein bars, cookies, and coated candy can enter Send to Amazon starting August 31, 2026, with customer-order availability stated for September 14. All chocolate, chocolate-coated nuts, fruit, caramel, and gelatin gummies wait until September 21 to ship and October 5 to become available.

That makes a single “meltables reopened” status unsafe. The unit of control is the ASIN, its assigned wave, and two separate clocks.

The spring calendar is no longer enough

Amazon’s spring announcement said fulfillment centers would not accept meltable inventory between April 20 and September 28, 2026. The August 28 announcement adds a newer, more specific reopening schedule by product type, including an August 31 start for the first group and September 21 for the second.

An operator working from the spring calendar alone could now be late. An operator who reads only the August 31 headline could be early with chocolate. Keep both notices in the evidence record, but route against the latest product-specific schedule and what Send to Amazon actually accepts for the ASIN.

The policy definition remains broad: heat-sensitive products that melt during extended exposure to 155 degrees Fahrenheit, including chocolate, gummies, and selected jelly- and wax-based products. That is a classification boundary, not permission to decide that every product with one of those words belongs in the same reopening wave.

Put every ASIN into one wave

Start with a catalog table, not a warehouse instruction. One row should contain ASIN, SKU, product type, Amazon meltable classification, current list snapshot date, assigned wave, earliest send date, stated customer-ready date, quantity on hand, and evidence link.

Amazon’s product group	Earliest send date	Stated customer availability
Coated and pectin gummies, protein bars, cookies, coated candy	August 31	September 14
All chocolate, chocolate-coated nuts, fruit, caramel, gelatin gummies	September 21	October 5

Do not classify from the listing title alone. “Coated candy” appears in the first group, while “all chocolate” and several chocolate-coated products appear in the second. A chocolate-coated candy can sound compatible with both phrases. The announcement does not publish a decision tree for that edge case.

Use the current meltable ASIN list and the ASIN’s live Seller Central workflow. If those signals conflict, hold the unit out of the shipment and open a case rather than turning ambiguous wording into an inventory gamble.

Send date and sell date are different controls

Each official wave has 14 calendar days between its stated send date and customer-availability date. That symmetry is useful for planning, but it is not an Amazon promise that a specific shipment will be received, checked in, and sellable within 14 days.

The send date answers when the shipment may enter the FBA workflow. The customer-ready date answers when Amazon says that product group will be available for orders. Actual units still depend on shipment creation, carrier movement, receiving, ASIN eligibility, and inventory status.

Put the dates in separate columns. If a planner uses September 14 as both an availability date and a guaranteed check-in date, a delayed shipment becomes a silent stockout. If finance treats August 31 as a sales restart, cash appears two weeks before the announced customer window.

Release inventory in bounded waves

The first shipment should test the control, not consume the entire seasonal bet. Release a bounded quantity after Send to Amazon accepts the ASIN, preserve the shipment-plan result, and watch receiving and live offer status before expanding the next replenishment.

Choose the quantity from the business’s own demand and lead-time evidence. Amazon did not publish a universal units-per-ASIN recommendation in the reopening notice. Separate the quantity decision from the eligibility decision: an ASIN can be permitted to ship and still be a poor buy because demand, remaining shelf life, fees, or post-season sell-through does not work.

Keep seller-fulfilled coverage visible during the handoff if the product and operating model support it. Do not count the same units as both merchant-fulfilled safety stock and committed FBA inbound. One inventory ledger should show where each unit is and which channel can actually promise it.

Make borderline classification an evidence task

Amazon’s official moderator guidance for meltable exemptions asks for a manufacturer letter on letterhead that names the specific ASINs, explicitly confirms they can be stored at a maximum of 155 degrees Fahrenheit for extended periods, and provides a verification contact.

That is a documentation route, not an automatic exemption. A lab result, supplier email, or ingredient assumption should not be represented as Amazon approval. Preserve what was submitted, the case ID, Amazon’s response, and the ASIN list version that the operation used.

The same evidence discipline applies in the other direction. If Amazon classifies an item as meltable, do not remove the control because a team member thinks the product “probably survives” normal summer shipping. The relevant test is the current platform classification and documented resolution, not an internal opinion.

The Operator Read

The new schedule is not one reopening. It is a routing problem with two product waves and two clocks per wave.

The fastest team is not the one that sends every heat-sensitive SKU on August 31. It is the one that can show why each ASIN belongs in its wave, when the shipment became permissible, when customer availability was stated to begin, and what evidence stopped an ambiguous item from moving early.

Snapshot the list, split the catalog, release a bounded shipment, and reconcile the live offer before scaling. The headline says meltables are coming back. The operating answer is an ASIN-level gate.