Q4 velocity spikes two to four times and sellers either stock out in November or drown in January storage. Enter your velocity, lead time, current stock, and a Q4 multiplier. Get the exact quantity to order and the last day you can place it.
Units to order · order-by date · stockout risk
Dates assume today as the starting point and use your Q4 velocity for the whole window. Amazon's own restock and inbound deadlines can be earlier, so treat this as your latest safe date, not the target.
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Q4 punishes guessing from both sides. Order too little and you stock out mid-November, lose your rank when it is worth the most, and hand the sales to a competitor. Order too much and January arrives with long-term storage fees eating the profit you just made.
The problem is that Q4 demand is not your normal demand. It spikes two to four times, and your lead time does not shrink to match. So the order you place in September has to carry holiday velocity, and the day you can safely place it is earlier than instinct says. Miss that date and no amount of money fixes it, because the inventory cannot arrive in time.
This calculator applies your Q4 multiplier, works backward through your lead time, and hands you the quantity and the last safe order date.
Velocity, Q4 multiplier, current stock, lead time, coverage, and safety buffer.
We scale demand for Q4, find when your stock runs dry, and subtract your lead time.
Units to order, your last safe order-by date, and the day you stock out if you wait.
Take your normal daily velocity, multiply by your Q4 multiplier to get holiday demand, then multiply that by the days of coverage you want plus a safety buffer. Sell ten a day, expect two and a half times demand, and want 74 days of cover, you order about 1,850 units.
Work backward from the day your current stock runs out at Q4 velocity, then subtract your supplier and inbound lead time. If your stock covers 16 days of Q4 demand and your lead time is 45 days, your order-by date already passed, which means you are behind and should order now.
Most products see a 2 to 4 times lift in Q4, with gifting and seasonal items on the higher end. If you have last year's November and December numbers, use your own ratio. If not, start at 2.5 and adjust as the season builds, since underestimating means a stockout at the worst time.
Yes. Run it as many times as you want with no account. Drop your email only if you want the breakdown sent to your inbox.
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