Amazon Adds a New Fee For Sellers Who Ship Their Own Packages (cnbc.com) 52
Amazon is adding a new charge for third-party sellers who ship their own products instead of paying for the company's fulfillment services. CNBC reports: Beginning Oct. 1, members of Amazon's Seller Fulfilled Prime program will pay the company a 2% fee on each product sold, according to a notice sent to merchants last week, which was viewed by CNBC. Previously, there was no such fee for sellers. "We're updating our requirements for Seller Fulfilled Prime to ensure that it provides customers a great and consistent Prime experience," the notice states. An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that the company instituted a fee for SFP members due to the costs of developing and running the program.
The SFP program, launched in 2015, allows third-party merchants to sell their products with the Prime badge without paying for Amazon's fulfillment services, known as Fulfillment By Amazon. The SFP program hasn't attracted as many users as FBA has, given that sellers are expected to meet the company's Prime delivery standards, such as speedy shipping and weekend service. In June, Amazon reopened sign-ups for the invite-only program, after it suspended enrollment in SFP in 2019. The e-commerce giant also charges sellers a referral fee between 8% and 15% on each sale. Sellers may also pay for things like warehouse storage, packing and shipping, as well as advertising fees.
The SFP program, launched in 2015, allows third-party merchants to sell their products with the Prime badge without paying for Amazon's fulfillment services, known as Fulfillment By Amazon. The SFP program hasn't attracted as many users as FBA has, given that sellers are expected to meet the company's Prime delivery standards, such as speedy shipping and weekend service. In June, Amazon reopened sign-ups for the invite-only program, after it suspended enrollment in SFP in 2019. The e-commerce giant also charges sellers a referral fee between 8% and 15% on each sale. Sellers may also pay for things like warehouse storage, packing and shipping, as well as advertising fees.
Amazon Seller Here (Score:4, Informative)
Posting anonymously for reasons...
Amazon continues to raise the cost of doing business for its sellers. Just know that over 50% of every penny you spend on Amazon goes to Amazon. If you can buy the product direct from the seller. It will most likely be significantly cheaper, and more of the proceeds actually get to the seller.
Re: Amazon Seller Here (Score:2)
considering how god aweful most sellers are to communicate with. i consider that a tax on good service!
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you being lacist! We do best job shipping you plastic but ship only go so fast. Please be giving us 5 star review and forrow us on lacebook.
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Worse service than Amazon?!?
Re:Amazon Seller Here (Score:5, Interesting)
While I agree with that, in theory, one big reason for Amazon existing, except for "one-stop-shop", is the relative consistency of its services.
That 50% tax you mention includes several things that make shopping much easier (using Amazon's fulfillment service).
1. You can easily return a product.
2. You are pretty much insured against shady sellers, wrong product received, bad product received, etc.
3. You have fast delivery.
4. You need not worry whether the seller is actually genuine or a scam.
Of course, there are exceptions to each of the above, even when using Amazon, but the risk is much, much lower.
In my country, there is no Amazon, but we have one large e-store which behaves similarly. I have a subscription to them, and I prefer buying products "shipped by" that e-store, even if the price of a product is higher than own seller's website. My time and peace of mind are more valuable than those extra few bucks I have to spend.
Re:Amazon Seller Here (Score:5, Insightful)
This system incentivizes the cheap-chineseum resellers.
If your entire business consists of ordering cheap bulk goods from a manufacturer in China, having it delivered directly to Amazon's FBA warehouse, letting Amazon handle everything... this works well. Little effort is required beyond sourcing items, and placing orders. You make a profit.
If your business deals in real goods that require handling (staff, space, etc) then the "Amazon Tax" leaves nothing for you.
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What you say is very likely, and yes, I found it harder and harder to find proper (quality) items on Amazon. I'd rather use AliExpress, they have impeccable record track as far as customer satisfaction goes, my only complaint is some items take for EVER to arrive (3+ months in some cases).
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Uh..
1. You can easily return a product.
2. You are pretty much insured against shady sellers, wrong product received, bad product received, etc.
3. You have fast delivery.
4. You need not worry whether the seller is actually genuine or a scam.
Amazon has changed their return policies, it's not as simple as it used to be. I received a busted computer case and even after printing all the paperwork and label, repackaging it, taking it to the local UPS store, getting a receipt and it being delivered with tracking, they still tried to charge me for it three times.
As for sellers, if you complain then they'll investigate. If enough complaints are received then they'll do something. I honestly think eBay does a better job weeding out scammers.
If fast
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Amazon has changed their return policies, it's not as simple as it used to be. I received a busted computer case and even after printing all the paperwork and label, repackaging it, taking it to the local UPS store, getting a receipt and it being delivered with tracking, they still tried to charge me for it three times.
Your anecdotal single data point means nothing. I've returned more than a few things to Amazon, for a variety of reasons, and never once had a problem. Heck, when I take things to the local Kohl's, I don't even have to repackage it. Just show them return form on my phone and done. Usually have my refund the same day too.
As for sellers, if you complain then they'll investigate. If enough complaints are received then they'll do something. I honestly think eBay does a better job weeding out scammers.
If I complain to whom? The seller? Nope; I've had problems with third party sellers on Amazon before, and it usually devolved into me having to deal with Amazon directly, and letting Amazon
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Used to love Amazon. Now I can't stand the majority of its business practices.
Corey Doctorow likes to use the term “enshitification” for companies who decide that every single dollar’s worth of profit that runs through the business must flow to them.
As the article mentions, Amazon wants fees for shipping. They want fees for not shipping. They want fees for advertising and product placement. Start selling a product that’s too popular, and Amazon will seek out your sources and compete
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Junkification is a thing on pretty much all major platforms. We have a local major platform in my country (not Amazon) and it's exactly the same situation, you don't know what to choose because everybody and their dog sell the same shit product with different brand names, picture angles and prices, and each of them swears it's the best thing since hot water.
The scores being equal, we need to focus on what sets one platform apart from others.
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"1. You can easily return a product."
Bullshit.
I bought a '1080p' microscope two months ago. It wasn't 1080p. It was 720x480.
I filed a complaint. First response was to ship out a new unit. That never arrived, I file another complaint. Nothing from the seller. File again to Amazon...
I paid $15 for this camera. What do I get? A fucking fifty cent refund on FALSE ADVERTISING.
Amazon needs to be outright shut down.
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Amazon needs to drop the third party seller marketplace crap all together and then be the only seller and shipper. They then need to fix the product searching functionality that has become worse than a free weekend getaway to Hell. If they still want to cater to the thirty party seller, they can offer standalone storefront and SEO services. All of the other sites now running marketplaces mixed in with their own offerings need to also change. This has become commonplace for many big traditional brick and
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2. You are pretty much insured against shady sellers, wrong product received, bad product received, etc. 3. You have fast delivery. 4. You need not worry whether the seller is actually genuine or a scam.
Of course, there are exceptions to each of the above, even when using Amazon, but the risk is much, much lower.
Um... 2019 called, they were wanting to get this post back.
You say that there's no Amazon in your country, so maybe you're not aware that they've REALLY gone downhill in the last four years. Even Prime delivery is no longer guaranteed 2 days for most things (for 3rd party sellers I've seen as much as 2-3 weeks), and shady sellers peddling unpronounceable fake brand names are running rampant.
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I don't have them in my country, but I ordered from .co.uk, .de, .it, and also a couple times from .com during the last couple years. .com was the worst. :)
The rest, I have absolutely zero complaints. Items arrived quickly and, more importantly, they were the correct items
Maybe it's the other way around, you dislike it because .com sucks?
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Posting anonymously for reasons...
Amazon continues to raise the cost of doing business for its sellers. Just know that over 50% of every penny you spend on Amazon goes to Amazon. If you can buy the product direct from the seller. It will most likely be significantly cheaper, and more of the proceeds actually get to the seller.
Former Amazon seller here... I can confirm that when we were doing it 60-65% of the sale amount was eaten up by Amazon fees. It varied from month to month because some fees are fixed amount per month, some are fixed per item, and some are % of sales.
Eventually it was just too much work for too little return.
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I shifted $2M a year online. $1.25M+ on Amazon.
We had to hire extra staff just to keep up with the rate of Amazon orders. When they introduced Prime we signed up for FBA and did bulk shipments to Amazon warehouses in order to cut down on the fulfillment labor on our end (and to access customers who only ordered Prime/FBA).
Margins were tight to begin with due to competition in the market. With the additional FBA fees we actually lost money that year. on $2M+ in sales.
I gave up selling online. Fuck it.
Re: Amazon Seller Here (Score:2)
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Yep. In fact I've had sellers on Amazon in the past me to their web site for the cheaper deals. Same with sellers on eBay.
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... in the past lead me to their web site ...
Re: Amazon Seller Here (Score:1)
I purchase a lot of the same materials to incorporate into my products. So I just find parts I like, then just buy direct from suppliers. Cheaper, direct relationship. Way to go for a small business like mine.
Iâ(TM)ve thought about selling through Amazon but seems like they just keep finding new ways to screw over sellers.
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They were 22 to 25 percent CHEEPER
Bird watching books?
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" If you can buy the product direct from the seller. It will most likely be significantly cheaper, and more of the proceeds actually get to the seller."
But its a lot more work for the customer, to find the seller (if they are small) and to see if they have good service and have good products.
Amazon shipping seems to be pretty good around here (west central MN) now, and theres the 5% re-wards on my Amazon Prime credit card.
If the seller is located in Delaware or Montana I might consider buying direct from t
NOT cheaper direct from seller (Score:4, Informative)
Amazon prevented us from lowering our direct prices.
I worked for a seller. We lowered the prices on our own website because our costs were so much lower without our Amazon fees (around 15% at the time). It turned out Amazon was watching out for sellers doing that, and within a month of our price reduction, Amazon sent us an only slightly ambiguous reminder that pricing our products lower than on Amazon was cause for them to terminate our selling privileges. We immediately raised our direct-to-customer prices to protect our Amazon sales.
And FYI: Amazon enforces its more unsavory practices by ambiguously pointing you to a very long list of rules without telling you which rule you violated. When they did that, we were never able to get them to tell us which rule we violated. Even after we fixed whatever violation we thought we had, they would never tell us that we got the right one or that we were in the clear.
Like a criminal enterprise, Amazon controls its sellers through fear and intimidation, and you could never catch them saying they did what they did or why they did it. You simply had your seller privileges revoked without explanation and there wasn't a human in the world who would explain it to you. No evidence, no claim.
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Amazon prevented us from lowering our direct prices.
I worked for a seller. We lowered the prices on our own website because our costs were so much lower without our Amazon fees (around 15% at the time). It turned out Amazon was watching out for sellers doing that, and within a month of our price reduction, Amazon sent us an only slightly ambiguous reminder that pricing our products lower than on Amazon was cause for them to terminate our selling privileges. We immediately raised our direct-to-customer prices to protect our Amazon sales.
And FYI: Amazon enforces its more unsavory practices by ambiguously pointing you to a very long list of rules without telling you which rule you violated. When they did that, we were never able to get them to tell us which rule we violated. Even after we fixed whatever violation we thought we had, they would never tell us that we got the right one or that we were in the clear.
Like a criminal enterprise, Amazon controls its sellers through fear and intimidation, and you could never catch them saying they did what they did or why they did it. You simply had your seller privileges revoked without explanation and there wasn't a human in the world who would explain it to you. No evidence, no claim.
Hooooo boy... Wait until you find out what the likes of Visa and Mastercard have been doing to merchants for decades. Or the likes of Expedia are doing to hoteliers.
Amazon sucks worse than normal now (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon sucks even worse than usual lately. I've stopped buying from them almost completely. The price of Prime keeps going up, while the percentage of times that their shit gets delivered on time goes down. I live in a pretty large metro area, we've got at least 3 Amazon DCs nearby, 2 Amazon Air hubs, and a handful of local distribution warehouses. Probably half the time my stuff comes later than promised, or not at all. And they used to give you a free month of Prime, or some other little token BS if you contacted them about late packages, they don't even do that any more.
A lot of times when I used to buy stuff off of Amazon, it was stuff that I needed by a certain date, and they usually got it for me. Things like a last minute item needed for a camping trip or vacation, or a tool to fix my bike before a race, or things like that. But I don't do that any more, because they can't reliably get my purchases to me on time.
And don't get me started on their counterfeit problems, or what a disgusting person Bezos is.
Hopefully their storefront is dying, and we'll start getting more small local shops opening back up.
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Imagine only buying a tool to fix your bike before a race at the last minute.
I think the main problem is not amazon, but you seem to treat amazon as a JIT (just in time) inventory management system, I wouldn't be surprised if you returned the bike tool right after you use it.
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Adding- Amazon use to list prices and seller from 3rd party sellers in your lists, which is great to track fluctuations on prices or keep track if favored sellers are offering what you want.
Now you have to manually check, which means it is no more convenient than going someplace else.
If Ebay gets better search and list functions, I can see a lot of sellers (and buyers) going there.
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I've been doing eBay for years now, routinely beating Amazon by double-digit percentages (say from 10 to 50%) on the exact same items, week in and week out. That's even including the shipping and taxes. Amazon is one of those natural disasters that I go out of my way to avoid, like Walmart and most other big box stores.
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So from inside the store, I checked their website, found out I could have it a week. And
2% for literally nothing? (Score:3)
Re:2% for literally nothing? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still amazed that people work with or buy from this company.
There will be an additional 5% fee for not doing business with Amazon.
Re:2% for literally nothing? (Score:4, Informative)
Not exactly. If you go past the headline, this 2% fee is charged to third-party sellers who want the Amazon Prime badge. That Prime badge gives the seller additional credibility with customers, and communicates that they will get their order in a couple of days. That advertising is effective and definitely not "nothing."
Sellers who want to avoid the fee can forego the Prime badge.
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The biggest deal with Prime is that -by default- Prime members see offers from Prime sellers and not from non-prime sellers. (you can change the setting on your shopping account, and now *but not in the early years of Prime* you will see non-prime listings below the prime listing if you scroll down)
It is extortion. Pay Amazon the extra fee for having them handle the shipping (or for you handling it but promising to deliver for free in 2 days) or lose access to all the most-valuable potential buyers.
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Yep, it's kind of like grocery store fees. The sellers (like Coca-Cola and Lay's) who send their own employees into the stores to stock the shelves, pay far more in fees than sellers who let store employees stock the shelves (and get worse placement).
In future news ... (Score:3)
Amazon imposes a 1% fee on all companies *not* selling anything through Amazon. :-)
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Amazon imposes a 1% fee on all companies *not* selling anything through Amazon. :-)
Sounds like an idea that an EU bureaucrat would dream up. /sarcasm
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wait a minute . . . are you saying that there currently *isn't* a EU tax on goods shipped from the US to Canada?
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Not if said companies switch from AWS to Azure or Google Cloud.
Ask Authors (Score:2)
With ad costs included, up to 92% of the cover price for some books goes to Amazon for each and every sale.
Those same authors are locked into exclusivity, forced to compete with themselves, price-capped and word-count-capped, and if they don't pay, they get deleted from search.
This isn't new.
Fucking Amazon (Score:2)
Re: Fucking Amazon (Score:2)
Antitrust anyone? (Score:1)
That's pressuring smaller packaging competitors out of the market. Why is it big co's like Amazon and Microsoft keep challenging the edge of anti-competitive legal action? MS already got slapped once, and Amazon has been under review lately. Gee, it's almost if they are overly arrogant and greedy.
Musk is comming (Score:2)
I am fairly confident that Musk is going to step on Amazons toes as far as shipping and logistics depots.The only question is when.
I am surprised USPS has not seen the writing on the wall and invested in warehouses.Oh yeah they are only a seemingly private company with no real autonomy without government and political approval.
He will probably be more devastating to the the United States Postal Service and EBAY than to Amazon. The US Government will probably end up contracting with him to provide country wi
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He could have started such a thing at any time. There is absolutely no reason he needed to wait 20+ years to buy Twitter, a microblogging platform, to build a marketplace on top of. And naming it X? That connotes porn? And using an un-trademarkable literal Unicode character as its logo? And flushing the Twitter name that has household brand recognition down the toilet? I don't t
More likely Cuban (Score:2)
mark Cuban has already done this with costplusdrugs.
pricing is something to the effect of $3 per prescription for pharmacist, $5 per order shipping, and then 15 % over wholesale.
So it tends to be less than a copayment.