Abstract: An e-commerce service is configured to interface between merchants and vendors so that a merchant can purchase from vendors without having to communicate directly with the vendors. A recommendation service is also provided to provide recommendations to merchants regarding which of multiple available vendors to use for any given product. The recommendation service bases its recommendations on historical order data that has been archived by the e-commerce service, as well as on known or derived merchant properties. The recommendation service may also recommend rates at which an item should be ordered, based on ordering rates of other merchants.

Abstract: Techniques for recommending actions for a merchant to perform to encourage or discourage a sale of an item based on a threshold condition associated with the item. A service provider may obtain data from a plurality of merchants related to inventory, transactions, and actions taken by the merchants to change sales of an item offered for sale by the merchant. Based on determining a current inventory of the item in the merchant's inventory, determining that a condition is within a threshold condition, and via application of a data model that is trained on actions of similar merchants, the service provider may send a recommendation to the merchant to perform an action to encourage or discourage the sale of the item.

Abstract: Techniques for recommending actions for a merchant to perform to encourage a sale of an item based on an expiration associated therewith. A service provider may determine expiration data associated with inventory items offered for sale by the merchant. The expiration data may be based on a recommended date and/or time provided by the manufacturer, a merchant preference and/or a service provider setting. In some examples, the expiration data associated with an item may be determined based on expiration data associated with one or more similar items. The service provider may monitor the expiration data associated with each item of inventory and may determine that an expiration associated with a particular item is within a threshold period of time. Based on the expiration being within the threshold period of time, the service provider may send a recommendation to the merchant to perform an action to encourage the sale of the particular item.