AT this point I’m just trying to get rid of inventory, but was doing a bit of diving at our once-popular products and shocked at the removal of margins.
in 2021, our towels were selling for $14.80, and we’d margin about $0.80. I know, not a lot, but we kept ticking up prices to margin close to $2 after a time.
Then Amazon randomly changed our category without our notice and our daily sales became our monthly sales. So haven’t really watched this product too closely since…
But today, I see our avg sales price is $16.44, and our margin is about $-2.80 per sale.
Brutal!
I have a $3.83 inbound transportation charge per unit, that is insane! I used to send 1440 units at a time for something like $220 in 2021.
How can people see margins on smaller products (sub $20) with all these fees?
I cannot analyze your specific situation based on your information, but I do not get the impression you are managing your inventory levels in line with what Amazon thinks are proper criteria.
Amazon fees in FBA have been continually raised for sellers who are not properly using Amazon’s fulfillment centers and your experience may be totally what Amazon intends.
I’ve been sticking to their recommended sends and not sending over, but this product pallet sends a while back were a bit much and the fees are carrying down.
96% fees on sale price isn’t fee “inflation”; it’s fee creep due to ignoring it for a few years, plus lack of optimization somewhere in the process chain.
Have looked at all of your FBA products for the same data and analyzed for patterns?
My guess is that most FBAers aim for no more than 30% going to Amazon and 50% is a red flag
I’m almost wondering if SellersAskSellers might want an anonymous and confidential reporting form, where Sellers can post item prices and FBA fee percents, for comparative data and realistic analysis…
in the Edit Listing, they have me updated to .431kg, which is .95lb, but in the excel they have me rounded up to 1lb, which makes me USLargeStandard size?
I would suggest to everyone that uses FBA to create a “master” spreadsheet of all your items and their costs. I use the following-
Product cost
inbound freight (as close as you can estimate based on your usual shipping)
inventory placement cost (as you usually incur per your shipment choices)
storage cost (I use 2 months but it will vary buy your sell through)
FBA pick, pack ship fees (you should know this already)
FBA prep fees (if you need any)
Amazon commission fees (you should know this)
Your sale price
From this, you can calculate out your margins and have an easy reference to see if any of your costing changes. I keep 2 different spreadsheets, one for non-holiday fees and one for holiday fees as there are large differences in fees between them.
I look at the FBA inventory page and compare the costs there with what is on my spreadsheet regularly so I know if I’m in the red (or below my margin threshold) before I sell a bunch of product.
I don’t sell thousands of products so it takes me little time to reconcile. If you have a massive catalog it might take more time but doing it regularly is time well spent. I’ve been surprised to find category changes, FBA fee changes, etc on products before but thankfully found out before I sold a bunch at a loss.
Typical example for us below. Don’t mind sharing for comparison / educational purposes. Not included here is storage but it’s so cheap for us, it’s practically meaningless. Non-Peak, we pay under $200 per month for ~30K units.
What’s not included here though is advertising, insurance, and every other cost of doing business. It’s not easy to make $ on Amazon, even if you have strategic advantages. Probably not news to anyone here.
You are 100% correct. I had a supplier package my product in oversized bags because that was all they had left at the time. Great, but FBA changed the size and I ended up paying much more for those units.
It sucked to do it, but I went through, folded and taped them to get them down close to the original size. Wasn’t fun, but it saved me a lot of money in FBA fees.
By the way, remember to have suffocation warnings on all your bags with openings over 5 inches (or maybe 6", I don’t remember for sure). If not, Amazon will reject them or charge you to put a warning label on them for you. Yes, I made that mistake too…
I’m almost wondering if SellersAskSellers might want an anonymous and confidential reporting form, where Sellers can post item prices and FBA fee percents, for comparative data and realistic analysis…
