Amazon is Raising Seller Fees For the Holidays To Manage Through Surging Inflation (cnbc.com) 49
In its latest effort to contend with soaring inflation, Amazon is planning to raise fulfillment fees during the holiday season, passing off some of its increased costs to the millions of merchants who rely on the site to sell their products. From a report: Starting Oct. 15, and running through Jan. 14, third-party sellers who use Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA, will have to pay 35 cents per item sold in the U.S. or Canada, the company said Tuesday in an email to sellers. For merchants using FBA, Amazon handles the process of picking, packing and shipping items. The holiday fee comes on top of existing charges that sellers pay for using FBA services. Those costs vary depending on an item's size, category and weight.
Amazon said it's implementing an added holiday surcharge for the first time as "expenses are reaching new heights," making it harder for the company to absorb costs tied to the peak shopping season. "Our selling partners are incredibly important to us, and this is not a decision we made lightly," Amazon said in the email. Amazon's third-party marketplace has become the centerpiece of its dominant e-commerce business, as it now accounts for more than half of online retail sales. Because of Amazon's global reach and massive customer base, many retailers count on the company for the majority, and in some cases the entirety, of their business.
Amazon said it's implementing an added holiday surcharge for the first time as "expenses are reaching new heights," making it harder for the company to absorb costs tied to the peak shopping season. "Our selling partners are incredibly important to us, and this is not a decision we made lightly," Amazon said in the email. Amazon's third-party marketplace has become the centerpiece of its dominant e-commerce business, as it now accounts for more than half of online retail sales. Because of Amazon's global reach and massive customer base, many retailers count on the company for the majority, and in some cases the entirety, of their business.
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A 35 cent fee is so small it is hard to see why it would matter very much to anyone except an Amazon seller. Ordinary inflation is a much bigger deal that affects everyone, even those people already willing to pay the extra costs associated with purchasing small dollar items on Amazon - and those aren't trivial, more like a good way to pay twice as much as at the local store.
Cry me a river (Score:1, Insightful)
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God forbid the corporations that make BILLIONS settle for less profits when things get more expensive.
Why should they? Inflation means broadly higher prices that affect everyone. There is no reason that Amazon's sellers should be an exception.
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I smell a bubble.
Re: Cry me a river (Score:1)
Record profits tho.... (Score:1, Troll)
Record profits tho....
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
In Related News.. (Score:3)
Corporations try to make money and water is wet.
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Re: In Related News.. (Score:1)
Increasingly, I find this retarded.
More consumer crap doesn't make people happy. Constant desire for cars, houses, trips, etc. just leads to more desire, more unfulfillment, and environmental problems.
Corporations are people working for money to buy stuff from corporations.
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Unfortunately, those that make the decisions that cause people to stop paying the corporation usually can be found at another corporation with 25% higher pay six months later.
Besides maybe for Artisanal Builds, those that screw up won't be held accountable. Sigh.
Just another 'fuel surcharge'. (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF Bezos (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: no buy from amazon begins (Score:1)
This is the key (Score:3, Interesting)
They even have a scheme they enable to profit from stolen credit card data. Our online store gets dozens of "sales" from crooks trying to pay us with stolen credit cards, to fulfill orders that they've received through their Amazon listing for some popular product at half-price. It's a great scheme - Amazon gets their cut, the fraud seller gets paid, and if we don't detect the fraud then the end-user even gets their product. Only my company is left holding the bag. We've reported it to Amazon many times and it is never addressed.
Amazon failed to automate (Score:3)
All they had to do was put their foot down and require nearly all their vendors and suppliers to use robot-friendly packaging instead of retail packaging. If all their suppliers provided products in various standardized boxes, the robots could handle pick and place instead of humans. I am sure vendors would rather package their products in bot-handleable formats instead of paying a higher seller fee.
Re: Amazon failed to automate (Score:1)
Say what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Inflation is the rise in price of the cost of goods and services. To manage this, Amazon is going to . . . raise fees on sellers who will pass this on to the buyers.
Sounds like a perfect plan to beat inflation.
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The problem is- who the hell are these better people?
Who do I vote for if I happen to agree with you that you can't tax your way to prosperity, but I also, say, for example, don't want to support fucking theocrats that are, by my opinion anyway, quite a bit more damaging.
Re: Say what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Red states are known for their flourishing middle class </sarcasn>
So, as suspected. You have no answer. You're not really interested in solving the problem, you just want to make sure you can control peoples morality.
Re: Say what? (Score:1)
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Median income is much higher in blue states.
Median. Not average (though that too), but median. I've lived in both worlds. Arkansas and Oklahoma are fucking tragic.
It may be true that our income inequality is worse, because we have more multibillionaires, but our middle class is also stronger.
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But remnants of a manufacturing base that no longer exists in blue states can be found in red states, where there does seem to be a working middle class; Republican-led states have a higher percentages of workers whose highest level of educational attainment is a high school diploma in large part because an economic base still exists providing skill-matching employment opportunities in industries like manufacturing. And many of those people are living solidly middle-class lives.
We found that 62 percent of manufacturing workers were in red states—compared to 37 percent of manufacturing workers in blue states. Similarly, of those whose highest level of educational attainment was a high school diploma, two thirds were in red states compared to just one third in blue states.
Those manufacturing jobs are good paying jobs people without higher education can get.
The 2 best states for the middle class are Utah and Idaho, both red [smartasset.com], so it is far from clear that blue is better there.
I hear you, though, that the blue states might be better off overall, so inequality might be a bad measure; the old 'a rising tide lifts all boats' argument. Do you have any data to support that?
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Did you miss this section?
I didn't, I just found it to be bullshit.
Those manufacturing jobs are good paying jobs people without higher education can get.
Of course they are.
Manufacturing jobs are not the only middle class jobs.
The reasoning that State A has more manufacturing jobs, and ergo more or higher paying middle class jobs, doesn't follow.
The 2 best states for the middle class are Utah and Idaho, both red [smartasset.com], so it is far from clear that blue is better there.
Some sketchy reasoning puts them up there.
Idaho, for example has 1% more houses in their definition of "middle class" than Washington, yet 5% lower household income adjusted for cost of living.
How then, is Idaho #2, and Washington #27?
Simple- because their metrics for sc
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> Gini index is ridiculous. I'd love to hear your reasoning for how Gini index says anything about the how "well the middle class is doing".
A lot of how well people are doing is how they compare themselves to others. The Gini measure is an indicator of whether people feel like they are valued members of the current society. With this view, a larger middle class doesn't necessarily matter; if everyone were making $50k, inst
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A lot of how well people are doing is how they compare themselves to others.
A fair point. But living amongst billionaires doesn't particularly make me feel bad. My own lot is well enough that I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. I can't extrapolate my feelings on the matter to all people, but I suspect what people really care about is if they're stressed financially, not if they have a lot of millionaires within 10 square miles of them.
The Gini measure is an indicator of whether people feel like they are valued members of the current society.
Hm. Also an interesting point.
I started out here making $8.25 an hour (quite a long time ago). My household is now bringing in well over 2.5x the me
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I completely misread:
E.g. I'd consider 10% rich, 60% middle, 30% poor as worse than 45% rich, 45% middle, 10% poor
Rather, I agree with you completely.
Re: Say what? (Score:1)
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So much NOT an Amazon fan, but .... (Score:3)
Even the US Post Office has historically done rate increases over the Christmas holiday season, and announced a couple weeks ago that they'd do it again this year. So paying more to ship during this peak time of year is pretty standard stuff.
Can't really fault Amazon here for applying the same charges other shippers do.
Really? (Score:2)
Amazon has become in the last 10 years two things:
1) Over priced
2) Over priced flea market
Why would I pay 1000% markup on an item, when I can walk into a brick & mortar shop and pay less than recommended retail?
Re: Really? (Score:1)
Bezos is a smart business man (Score:1)
Best way to deal with China taking over your listings and turning your inventory into a joke of plastic garbage and fakes is to cut profits for your sellers even more so that only China with shipping subsidized by our tax dollars can compete on your shitty fraud website.
Buy it from source (Score:3)
Re:Buy it from source (Score:4, Insightful)
Works great if you're in the US, lousy if you're in Canada as most companies have really lousy international shipping options. Often they don't even tell you how they ship - and using UPS is a great way to tack on 40% in fees and things UPS loves to ding you for. Whereas on Amazon the shipping can be a lot cheaper and you can often pre-pay the taxes (the "Amazon Import Fees" so you get charged nothing.
Now, if you can get them to do express shipping things are much different as most of those fees go away - UPS and FedEx figure if you're paying for premium delivery, they won't nickle and dime you on a million fees. It's stupid, but it's often cheaper that way - you pay like $20 more and it'll come the next day and be cheaper than if you went the slow way. But that's only if the company allows you to pick a shipping option - not really an option for international.
The number of companies that do it well - including pre-paying the duties and taxes, is increasing so it just comes to your door, along with non-ridiculous overpriced shipping and all that is slowly increasing. But we're not there yet, and there's still way too many companies that refuse to ship internationally, forcing one to use Amazon and others.
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Hey fat, inflation is down this month (Score:2)
All the top economic experts, including the brightest person I know, agree on that. So get your facts straight, man!
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0% even
Because the best way to manage inflation is.... (Score:2)