Lead Time
The total time from placing a purchase order to having sellable inventory in Amazon's FBA network.
Lead Time is the total elapsed time from "I place a purchase order" to "the inventory is sellable in Amazon's FBA network." It includes supplier production time, shipping from supplier to your warehouse or prep center, prep work, inbound shipment to Amazon, Amazon's receive time, and the gap between received and sellable status.
Most wholesale operations underestimate lead time by 30-50% because they only count supplier production. A real lead time breakdown for a typical wholesale order might look like: 7 days production + 4 days freight + 2 days prep + 5 days inbound shipping + 3 days Amazon receive = 21 days total. If your DOC drops to 21 days you're ALREADY late on the reorder.
Good inventory tools track lead time per SKU per supplier and use the actual measured lead time (not the supplier's claimed lead time) to compute reorder points. SellerVault's restock engine learns lead time from the time gap between PO creation and "received" status across past orders, then surfaces a confidence interval — useful for flagging suppliers whose lead time has been creeping up.