Amazon sellers’ costs are going to rise again, and many fees will change!

The arrival of the new year has filled many sellers with expectations. After experiencing a series of account closures and associations in the cross-border circle in 2021, the development of cross-border e-commerce has been affected to a certain extent. The profits of small and medium-sized sellers have declined, while the profits of large sellers are relatively stable, and the overall development is stable .

Amid global supply chain issues and recurring epidemics, sellers’ shipping costs are still increasing. In addition, a new round of Amazon fee changes will further increase sellers’ costs.

Multiple fee changes have increased seller costs!

According to Amazon's previous announcement, starting from January 18, 2022, many of Amazon's fees will change , including Amazon logistics delivery fees, monthly storage fees, sales commissions, logistics removal and disposal fees, as well as small and light commodity program fees, labeling fees, etc.

According to the specific content announced by Amazon, logistics costs will increase by 5.2%, while the removal and disposal costs for some products will increase by more than 130%, and the highest will reach 150%, which is the most prominent increase among all costs.

Taking goods of different sizes as an example, the removal and disposal fee for standard-sized goods weighing 0 to 0.5 pounds will increase from $0.32 to $0.52, while the removal and disposal fee for standard-sized goods weighing 0.5 to 1.0 pounds will increase from $0.35 to $0.75...

As of September this year , the storage fees are $0.83 and $2.40 per cubic foot (standard) , $0.53 and $1.20 per cubic foot (extra large), and some products will be subject to expired inventory surcharges.

In addition, the sales commission that sellers are concerned about will be reduced by 7%. Many people said that it really increased without any delay! They were a little disappointed. The delivery fee of small and light goods is mainly due to the change in weight, from the original 12 ounces to 3 pounds...

Obviously, the increase in multiple fees means an increase in costs, which naturally adds another headache for sellers. It is worth noting that the above fee changes do not take effect at the same time, so sellers should make plans for the next step in a timely manner based on Amazon’s previous announcements.

Some sellers said that the adjustment of multiple fees has created new requirements for their product development, product selection, stocking and transportation in the new year. Whether the product selection is appropriate, the standard size and weight of the product will affect the cost of investment. For example, if the product cannot be sold or the sales volume is low, the subsequent processing fee will not be the same as before.

In terms of FBA, in addition to the increase in costs, lost items also happen occasionally.

It is difficult to claim compensation because the seller’s FBA warehouse quantity is missing.

Recently, a seller revealed that there was a phenomenon of missing quantity of FBA warehouses.

According to the seller, among the shipments she recently sent with the status of completed, there were several cases where the quantities were inconsistent. Some were more than the actual amount, and some were less than the actual amount. For the ones with a smaller number of lost items, Amazon chose to pay compensation directly.

The above situation is relatively smooth. Sometimes, when the shipment is closed, the received quantity and the shipped quantity are inconsistent, with a difference of several to more than ten . The backend shipment difference query directly shows that the investigation has been completed without any operation by the seller. The seller can only open a case in the backend to contact customer service to apply for an inquiry.

Since such situations occur frequently, the seller found suspicious points by checking the received inventory data report in the Amazon backend, suspecting that the goods were lost during the transfer from Amazon to another warehouse after being received by Amazon.

During the communication process, the customer service also admitted that "the product may have been lost during the transfer process." For further verification, the customer service will ask the seller to provide, for example, the original invoice from the supplier. The invoice must contain detailed information such as the purchase date, the name of the lost product, the total quantity purchased, the full name and address of the supplier, etc.

After the seller provided the requested information, Amazon did not find the missing products and replied to the seller, " We do not have any record of receiving the relevant products. We recommend that you communicate with the shipper or carrier of the shipment to find out the actual products and quantities shipped . "

The seller did not agree with the survey results and filed several cases to ask Amazon to investigate. Later, the seller found that different customer service representatives had different opinions on the received inventory report in the Amazon backend.

If the seller does not directly mention lost goods, but only asks about the positive and negative numbers of Amazon's received data, the customer service will admit that the positive number represents the received quantity . If the seller believes that there is lost goods, he will be told that this value only represents the background delivery plan, not the actual received quantity. "It may be that the corresponding boxes of the goods were received by the machine according to the background packing information. When it was actually received later, the corresponding products were not received after verification and confirmation, so the corresponding received quantity was deducted. "

After some communication, not only did the seller fail to successfully retrieve the lost goods, but the customer service's two sets of statements made the seller confused.

According to feedback from other sellers, inconsistent quantities are not uncommon. Sometimes the data becomes less, but it will return to normal after a while. There may even be a situation where more data is received than actually received, which is also a headache for sellers.

Although there are many trivial matters, they do not affect the overall development of Chinese sellers.

The platform cracked down on illegal activities, and Chinese sellers developed steadily overall

Just recently, Amazon stated in a press release that although Amazon launched a large-scale crackdown on fake reviews and other violations in 2021 , resulting in the closure of thousands of Chinese sellers' accounts, overall, Chinese sellers' Amazon business basically maintained healthy growth in 2021 .

Amazon's crackdown, which began last May, hit some of the largest Chinese brands on its platform, including Aukey, Mpow and Shenzhen Youkeshu Technology Co., Ltd. More than 130 million yuan ($20 million) of Youkeshu's funds were frozen and 340 accounts were closed.

In September 2021, Amazon closed approximately 3,000 seller accounts supported by 600 Chinese brands as part of its crackdown on seller review manipulation and other violations.

But Cindy Tai, Amazon's vice president of global sales in Asia, said in a video at a recent Amazon Seller Conference that the number of Chinese sellers on the Amazon platform grew by double digits in 2021 .

Additionally, throughout 2021, the number of Chinese sellers with sales of $1 million or more increased 50% year-over-year , with the number of sellers reaching this sales volume for the first time increasing by more than 20%.

He also said: " Amazon's large-scale crackdown on violations has not affected the proportion of Chinese sellers in Amazon's overall sales, and China's business has maintained healthy and rapid growth . "

He pointed out that Amazon will give priority to cooperating with Chinese merchants and operating within the rules, and good compliance is the bottom line for a brand to survive in any market or on any platform.

In addition, Amazon also encourages Chinese merchants to target emerging markets such as Singapore and India to gain new growth potential. Amazon established its first seller training center in Asia in Hangzhou last September for global sales.

As an Amazon seller, you should protect your personal information, abide by the platform rules, pay attention to the policy changes released by the platform, and the popular videos on major social platforms, and grasp the traffic direction of hot-selling products ... I believe that in the wave of cross-border e-commerce, Chinese sellers still have strong marketing capabilities!

In addition to Amazon, many e-commerce platforms around the world are also stepping up efforts to attract Chinese sellers.

Data from Marketplace Pulse shows that Walmart opened its market to international sellers in March, attracting more than 6,000 sellers from China, accounting for 20% of Walmart's new sellers by the end of 2021. At the same time, some Chinese sellers have also begun to invest more in other international online retail platforms such as eBay and AliExpress!

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