Amazon US fees from 1st June 2021

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Amazon have announced that Amazon US fees will change on the 1st of June with what they call ‘modest’ increases.

Before getting to the fees, they point out that from the 15th of April 2020 to the 15th of January 2021, independent third-party sellers increased their Amazon sales by more than 55% year-over-year. Your experience may differ as while the entire world piled onto the Internet during the pandemic, many landing on Amazon, there are some products that were in high demand and others where interest dropped to zero.

Most referral fees will not change, but you will see about 2-3% on average rise to fulfillment fees (which Amazon were keen to point out are in line with or below industry averages). On the plus side, Amazon will also reduce certain fees, like the returns processing fee, which reflects feedback received from sellers and what Amazon say are their continued efforts to reduce costs.

The reality is that costs have gone up for your business and so fee rises aren’t attractive and the pandemic, regardless of how well you have done, will have increased costs to make your business Covid Secure. However Amazon are also facing two cost increases – the billions they have also spent making their operations Covid Secure and their commitment to pay a minimum $15 dollar per hour wage in the US. On the wage side, Amazon mitigate this in part through automation but again this adds in cost

One might think that the overall massive increase in business would in itself generate more in fees negating the need for a percentage increase, but marketplaces like to be profitable and so if they can squeeze more fees out of merchants and reduce costs from suppliers they will do so.