Looks like 2 units of 9 different listings. That is not going to work anymore, unless you can absorb the placement fee.
Sucks
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Yes, on the average. Most handmade sellers, especially sterling silver jewelry sellers are similar. We replenish our inventory frequently so that items that tarnish don’t sit in the warehouses too long. Also, there is the issue that most of us are still NOT included in the “disable return evaluation” program, and we usually recall the whole inventory once a return is put back into our inventory as sellable.
Back to the shipment. Once I confirmed the shipping, the total placement fee changed slightly:
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Damn… Forgot you were handmade. There was a question about how this was going to work for HM sellers. Guess we have our answer.
Hopefully Amazon reconsiders this sledge hammer approach and does what makes sense, and what is right by the community. I’m not holding my breath but am hopeful that the policy will be massaged for certain categories / sellers.
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@DDS thank you for posting the screenshots. It used to be, like 1-1/2 or 2 years ago, that they would automatically split all FBA into multiple shipments going to different FCs around the country. Then they made “everything ships in one box” available which was awesome, saved me $5 to $12 each time. Not surprising I guess that they are withdrawing that option. What I am concerned/confused about is
“When you create a shipping plan, you’ll see a fee estimate for each available inbound placement option. You’ll be charged the FBA inbound placement service fee 45 days after your shipment is received, based on the inbound location and the quantities received.”
So this placement fee is just an estimate, and we won’t be charged until 45 days after it’s received…
I wonder how big a shipment has to be before they give the option to split it into multiple shipments and avoid the placement fee.
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THIS right here is absolute gold. I’m pretty sure @ASV_Vites is the one who made me realize this one simple fact years ago and it has increased our sales at least 10 fold. I know some Handamde sellers just don’t have the QTY necessary to be in every warehouse (over 100 units each SKU) but if you do, it’s absolutely critical for your sales volume. Some people don’t like to admit it, but having 2 day or less delivery time definitely makes a HUGE difference in sales - people want stuff yesterday.
-Ana
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I can - I just have so many SKUs that it’s tricky to decide what to build up - but I’m working on it slowly. I was also not offered the split shipment. I wonder what that sweet spot is.
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We’ll only know what works after some people get burned unfortunately. I have some product almost ready to go and I’m going to try 3 case packs and see if I get the split. It’s going to be hit or miss until we get to see more people’s experiences over time unfortunately.
-Ana
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Ya the new process is going to kill a lot of business.
Here is a single pallet shipment of 32 oversize items. They don’t transfer oversize but still charge the fee.
$140 comes out to $4.50 per unit. Expect all FBA items to start going up or start disappearing.
The real kick in the groin is when these fees hit, and Amazon strips the buy box with a price cap because Walmart has the item available a week later for a cheaper price.
We are paying 140$ for them to transfer 0 in the last 30+ days after LTL receipt.
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Even if they’re not transferring it, it still ultimately costs FBA more money to fulfill the orders overall because they’re all sitting in 1 location. When someone far away orders it they have to spend more money to ship it to them.
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If I have 20 pallets and Amazon tells me to send the inventory to 5 and not 20 thats Amazon’s logistics responsibility. Until I tell them where the shipments go, that should be their burden to pay for not being near the consumer.
It’s called a “Placement fee” not a extended delivery fee. Lets not pretend they are picking FC’s nearest to our ship from location either.
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Well that shipment sounded like 1 pallet and no split. If they charge you a fee when you are splitting it to 3, 4, 5 or whatever number of locations that’s definitely a valid gripe
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Here is the math…
OR…
OR…
If they are not transferring it and still making me ship it across the country, why am I paying a fee??
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I asked this exact same question, try making a 1 box shipment. Not only are they telling you where to ship it to but they are charging you a “placement” fee to “tell” you where to ship it to. If they don’t “tell” you where to ship it to, you can’t use FBA in the first place. Next they will charge to “open the box” because that is a privilege to…
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Well, seems like 3 shipments is the winner here in terms of cost. In terms of buy box / visibility maybe spreading to 5 shipments gets your customers lower delivery times on average.
Yeah, it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it is what it is, and the choices are pretty fair. You have the option to avoid the placement fee altogether, and the option to send it all to 1 location (even though in this case that’s also the highest shipping cost) if for whatever reason you’re unwilling/incapable of splitting the shipment.
I have had a shipment, split to 3 locations, all locations were cross country (prior to this new thing). No idea why, but I assume Amazon has their reasons based on how busy certain locations are.
You’re acting like a box handling fee is some outrageous concept. Try to look at this from a 3PL company’s perspective. Handling each box costs a certain amount of labor which needs to be passed on to you.
Some business owners are willing to work for free and not count their own time, but if you’re hiring other people every single action costs time, which costs money. AWD btw, already does charge a box handling fee. And so do other 3PL companies.
Example from shipbob:
They directly charge you a fee to open a box, in the form of an hourly rate. If it takes 15 seconds to open the box they’re charging you about 15 cents as an “open the box” fee. Other 3PL services also charge various fees to receive inventory.
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Yes, but the other unspoken option was for Amazon to continue to do it included in the fee schedule they had managed to do it with for the last decade. I do not see any seller or consumer benefit, only a shedding of further expenses to the seller.
This type of thing will eventually be the death of FBA because the FBM price for buy box is not infinite meaning many FBA sellers will loose the buy box to FBM sellers with regional distribution or just those for sellers who happen to be closer to the consumer.
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As we have been going back and forth previously my only and still main issue is that FBA is a “needed” commodity to win the buy box. It is a monopoly. If you wanted to use another 3PL you can not win the buy box period. SFP can’t compete with FBA because there is no method of shipping on Sundays and most have cutoffs at 3PM.
So if you want to successfully sell on Amazon by de facto, you need to use FBA.
I totally agree Amazon is judge, jury and executioner and we either take it or leave it but it doesn’t mean we have to “take it happily.”
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Most people who make similar assertions do not calculate the value of their time or that of the employees.
Only sellers in depressed wage communities can make a legitimate argument about the outbound FBA fees IMO. The fees are laughable in most major metro areas when labor rates with health care and any other type of benefit are included.
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That was pretty evident in week 2 of our experience and then I discovered the OSFE and that made me instantly disgruntled with buyers remorse. 
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You’re missing the point. I’m stating that charging such receiving costs as time spent to open a box is a perfectly reasonable fee that regular 3PL companies already do charge. So if FBA begins charging it at some point it’s not some ridiculous thing. You’re failing to account for the fact that EVERYTHING has a cost. Companies can choose to either bundle those costs into a single fee, or to break down all costs and charge them individually, or a combination of the 2 methods.
And again, FBA is still cheap. There’s no monopoly abuse here.
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