Amazon released a new announcement, and many fees have increased across the board!

Yesterday, Amazon sellers just woke up from their sleep and were hit by a heavy blow: Amazon raised prices again!

The triple peak season storage fees had already put a lot of pressure on sellers. Just when they were planning to work hard during the peak season to cover this cost, they were notified that other fees would be increased. The sellers were completely stunned, and there was a lot of complaints in all the groups.

Amazon updates several fees, which will take effect starting January next year

On November 17, Amazon US announced that it would update sales commissions and logistics fees, which will take effect on January 17, 2023.

The announcement contains a lot of content. After sorting it out, the editor divided it into two parts: "favorable" and "unfavorable" from the seller's perspective.

There are five main "disadvantages":

1. FBA delivery fees will increase by an average of $0.22 , and more detailed weight segments will be introduced (based on quarter-pound and half-pound);

2. Non- peak season ( January to September) monthly storage fees : Standard size goods will be increased by $ 0.04 per cubic foot , and large goods will be increased by $ 0.03 per cubic foot. Peak season storage fees ( October to December) for non-sortable networks will be increased by $0.20 per cubic foot;

3. Surcharges will be increased for inventory stored for 271-365 days . In addition , an overage inventory surcharge will be introduced for inventory stored for 180-270 days ( except for clothing, footwear, luggage, jewelry and watches ). These changes will take effect on the overage inventory assessment date of April 15, 2023;

4. Sellers who store more inventory than they have sold in the most recent week will be charged a storage usage surcharge. This is expected to affect about 7.5% of sellers, as these sellers often use the highest storage volume relative to their sales . This change will take effect on April 1, 2023;

5. Increased removal and disposal costs .

The "advantage" section also has five items:

1. For items returned by customers in the apparel and footwear categories, the average return processing fee will be reduced by $0.2 per return ;

Second, the cost of the Amazon Logistics New Product Warehouse Promotion Program will be reduced. The average sales rebate for parent ASINs that meet the Amazon Logistics New Product Warehouse Promotion System has been increased from 5% to 10%. At the same time, the number of eligible products has been increased, and the qualification period for enjoying certain benefits in the program has been extended;

3. The small and light commodity program has been expanded. The price cap for eligible goods has been raised from $10 to $12 ;

4. Sales commission remains unchanged . However, it should be noted that ASINs of coin collectibles, entertainment collectibles, sports collectibles and collectible cards will be classified as other categories, which will change the commission (some will be higher, some will be lower, mainly depending on the category);

5. Cancel separate fuel and inflation surcharges .

In addition, the announcement pointed out that for clothing products, Amazon will use the larger value of the single piece weight or volume weight to determine the delivery weight of all large standard-size products. This change will take effect on February 16, 2023.

It is worth noting that the FBA delivery fee changes will take effect on January 17, 2023. Since the delivery fee is calculated and charged when the shipment leaves the fulfillment center. If the product is ordered before the fee change date but shipped on or after that date, the new rate will apply.

Comparing the changes in the "favorable" and "unfavorable" parts, it is obvious that the "unfavorable" changes have a greater impact on sellers and have a wider range of impact. Therefore, as soon as the announcement was released, it attracted crazy complaints from sellers.

Costs keep rising, sellers: I haven’t recovered from the last batch of leeks

Amazon said there are two main reasons for the cost increase:

First, some sellers used much more storage space this year than Amazon expected or thought it would need, which limited the amount of other sellers' products that could be sent to Amazon warehouses.

2. Fuel and inflation have brought more challenges to Amazon, and some challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic still exist.

Amazon stressed that, on average, these fee changes are lower than the fee changes announced so far by other logistics providers. In addition, Amazon's delivery fees will still be an average of 30% cheaper than standard delivery options offered by other major third-party logistics providers and 70% cheaper than comparable two-day delivery options.

Even so, sellers still cannot accept it, mainly because they have already accepted multiple rounds of price increases this year.

In response, one seller joked: "Amazon's pace is that prices are rising all the time, so I have to raise prices too, otherwise you will think I am out of touch with the world."

Many sellers are calling Amazon’s price hikes “ruthless” and “extreme”.

"——The leeks from the last harvest haven't even had time to catch their breath, and now they're starting over again;

——This and that are rising, but orders are not rising;

——This is crazy. Why do they need to send a notification when they can just grab it directly?

——The little profit brought by the profit has been squeezed out again. I don’t know how many sellers will leave the market next year.”

In addition to sellers' complaints, some Amazon operators also expressed helplessly that every price increase seriously affected their commissions, and they felt that increasing revenue and reducing costs was increasing their turnover.

Now that Amazon.com has released the announcement, sellers are worried that other sites will follow suit.

From the above, we can see that in addition to delivery fees, a major pressure faced by sellers comes from the increase in storage costs. This places higher demands on sellers in product selection and inventory turnover. Especially for sellers who sell bulk goods and sellers who sell large items, increasing the turnover rate has become a top priority, because if you accidentally incur storage fees during the production period, you may lose money.

Although there are many complaints, sellers also know that they have to face a reality: as long as they continue to sell on Amazon next year, they will have to grit their teeth and accept these increased fees. Sellers who are dissatisfied with being "controlled" by Amazon said: "I support Temu now."

Good news for small and light commodities, do you feel threatened by Temu?

In fact, Amazon may have already felt the threat from Temu. Some sellers have judged that Amazon wants to encourage more sellers to sell small and light products, judging from the increase in the price cap of small and light products to $12. And "low price" is exactly the feature of Temu.

One seller said that the price of small and light items increased from $10 to $12, which indirectly shows that Amazon wants sellers to develop the low-price market. Another seller also said: "Amazon should also realize the power of low prices."

It is with this strength that Temu, which was unknown to anyone, quickly surpassed Amazon and topped the US App Store free shopping app list one month after its launch. It now dominates the US App Store shopping download rankings.

During the Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, Temu directly offered an amazing discount of "70%-90% OFF", which was like giving it away for free. As more of its actions during the peak season were revealed, its ambition to "grab market share in the United States" was also revealed without any disguise.

Facing such a crazy competitor, even a powerful company like Amazon cannot remain unmoved. Moreover, with consumption downgrading, nothing can convince a consumer better than "low price".

In fact, not only the platform, but also Amazon sellers have felt the impact of low prices: "The category I am in is surrounded by low prices." The duck knows first when the river water warms in spring, and the feedback from sellers working on the front line of sales can often reflect part of the real situation.

FBA delivery fee

Storage Fees