I have to go back to the chart for our product type - small and very light. BRB… Not actually small and light btw…
ETA - my bad, it’s dropping 18 cents, not 20. Still a win.
Right, that’s in general. I’m looking, laser-focused, on what we do. We can do exactly what I stated above and save 32 cents a unit.
Will the stars align every single time? No
Does this open us up to more lost shipments? Yes - Has Amazon ever lost any shipment of ours before? - No
Does this open us up to more “SHIPMENT PROBLEMS” - Hell Yes
My point is there are ways to navigate this to remain margin neutral or even make a few bucks.
The writing on the wall is Amazon has a preferred type of item and seller. Those will be rewarded, everyone else will be punished. We’ve all seen Amazon quietly curate who they want at FBA and Amazon in general over the last few years by the moves they make.
Yes and no… Not yes to me being crazy, that’s a given.
I won’t know till I know. Waiting to even test the scenario until we actually have to create a shipment in a couple weeks. There may be subtle changes made between now and then. I can’t imagine it’s perfect on Day 5.
I just want to point out that the two are not mutually exclusive.
I’ll also mention that you came to mind when thinking about the sellers who could see the most drastic change; although the difference between pallet and SPD is a big variable.
Looks like my costs will roughly double per item, so not good, but not a deal breaker. Will just change what books I send in. Gotta do some number crunching one of these days (but today ain’t the day!)
I look forward to a market with fewer scabs and flippers. It will also clean out those low margin players who wreck markets with limited questionable inventory who think 1% is a good deal.
A part of me thinks this will help FBM sellers who have been disenfranchised by the buy box, unless they revamp the algorithm to give FBA sellers a wider scope to keep the BB.
The problem will be off Amazon price comparisons. I have WalMart sellers who have me buy box price trapped, because the algorithm does not account for slower shipment speeds and 50% negative seller feedback on off Amazon sites.
Not to mention all the mistaken links to unrelated products Amazons stupid system thinks are the same item.
With this added cost, where are the 3PL’s to offer their nationwide fulfillment services at net prices lower than Amazon’s combined fees for shipping-in and “fulfillment” (which now means only the shipping OUT part of the equation)?
Also thought of this, and you’re making very good points. My concern is when optimal placement isn’t available regardless of quantity shipped, which could significantly hurt profit margins for certain SKUs. The possibility that this change weeds out race-to-the-bottomers would certainly be a very welcome outcome, though.
Wasn’t this different the other day? Perhaps they are tweaking the program to make it make some sort of sense and live up to their word that there would always be an option to remove the fees with splits?
Well that was what was annoying me. I don’t mind paying for a service, but don’t pretend you doing something you need the fee for when you never transfer something 30x30x20". This is a plastic tank for a sprayer on a tractor. They have never transferred these that I can find.
I have speculatively attempted workflows with different carton sizes of the same SKU, and regardless of number of units per carton, the best I can do totals about 2% of the price of the product.
Prior costs of shipping to Amazon totaled about 1.5% of the price of the product.
Disregard my previous calculations for this SKU. They decided to change the size which bumps this into Extra Large size tier by 2 lbs dim weight. This put it outside the fee tiers but adds like 15$ in FBA fees so that’s a worse loss.
Well, at least it seems they’re being semi reasonable by not demanding you split to 5 warehouses to avoid the fee if 5 warehouses for that size don’t exist.
I don’t think Semi-Reasonable is a good description of this program.
“We will give you the option to pay reduced fees or even no fee based upon whether you send your shipment to a single location or multiple locations.”
This came right from Amazon’s filthy, greedy mouth. It’s a lie obviously considering what others are experiencing upthread. I haven’t looked yet and don’t intend to raise my BP until I have to.
One thing I’ve noticed is that just like pre-covid with multiple shipments, the time of day, day of the week, and some other factors seem to affect the pricing and splits. By doing a 6-case spd shipment tonight vs last night, I saved around $25.
Item in my post above was oversize - bulky. That they scanned previously at roughly 30x30x20" Its actual dimensions were 24x24x11.2". Amazon somehow counted it as “extra large” making the fees go WAY up.
Now, they just emailed me after a re-measure request and state…
What would you do in the moral conundrum knowing, they are under pricing their services at a loss?
They will probably catch this in the future. I don’t even know how you would even let them know.
With the way Amazon works, you open a case on this and they will delete the listing by accident.
How much $ has Amazon stolen from your company with the nonsense and mistakes? I put that number in the tens of thousands for us. Take some of it back.
We have a listing that has always been measured wrong, saving us $1.35 a unit. Too bad so sad. Wish it was our best seller. It’s not. It’s interesting that they have had this wrong since 2020 and never re-measured it after who knows how many inbounds after that date.
We are prepared for them to come back to us one day looking for that $ back. IDK if they can do that but I wouldn’t be surprised so think about that too.
came right from Amazon’s filthy, greedy mouth. It’s a lie obviously considering what others are experiencing upthread. I haven’t looked yet and don’t intend to raise my BP until I have to.