FBA Inbound API - Noticing imbalanced weight (ie: higher) to furthest centers in "optimized" plans causing optimized plans to not be cost effective

[MetaMan2023]

Is anyone else noticing this...

We are working as much as possible to get "Amazon Optimized" (ie: 5 center splits) to reduce costs.

We are located in the East Coast (NY area). What we are finding is that when Amazon offers 5 centers, that the furthest center seems to have the highest weight. In our case Arizona seems to be getting 25% or more of the cost, in one case 27%.

When this happens, it causes the shipping/freight costs to be higher -- as a larger portion of freight is going to further centers.

The more weight going to further centers makes the minimal centers (ie: centers with inbound placement fees) more cost effective. In multiple instances it seems that 2 centers is more optimal, but now Amazon is eliminating the 2 center option.

My point with this is that it seems that the 5 center split is becoming imbalanced in a way that makes it not cost effective to choose 5 centers, and thus we are being forced to pay inbound placement fees... but the whole point of 5 centers is that we "do the extra work and get the benefit".

[puppsupr]

This is more of a UI discussion instead of the APIs, please use Seller Forums for this. Also here is the documentation for the Splits.