Amazon Screws Sellers On Shipping (Again), Won't Raise Shipping Reimbursements

[mandy]

I just heard today, that Amazon will continue to maintain their fulfillment rates, even with the announced increase coming from USPS in mid-May...

Smaller sellers who use the Post Office will see a slight increase in their postage fees come mid-May, but sellers who use services like SmartMail/DHL and UPS Mail Solutions are in for a big surprise...

They will have to pass on those increases to the customer in an already low-margin, highly competitive environment...

full article: http://rksmythe.blogspot.com/2008/04/ama...-fees.html

[rksmythe]

Mandy,

Actually, I'm not sure that is the case. I think my post may have been confusing.

Amazon is not raising my fees for fulfillment through FBA; even though the USPS rates are going up -- that is a good thing.

There has been no announcement yet regarding the S&H reimbursement as far as I know. I have asked Amazon for info on this and hope to post as soon as they get back to me.

If the reimbursement doesn't go up, then that would certainly be a problem for those sellers who ship the product themselves. Since I use FBA I don't have to worry about that at this time.

[bargainbloodhound]

There has been no announcement yet regarding the S&H reimbursement as far as I know.

That's probably not a good sign based on past Amazon actions.  When the USPS raised rates in 2006 Amazon didn't increase it's shipping allowance for Marketplace sellers (see this January 2006 post and announcement Amazon Sellers Get Screwed On Shipping Rates By Amazon.) Historically, when Amazon has raised shipping allowances in response to a USPS rate increase it has announced the increase a few weeks before the date of the USPS increase (as it did in 2007 when it raised shipping allowances:  see this thread: http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...821.0.html).

Amazon still has 2 weeks to announce an increase but I'm not very optimistic that it will.  It could hold Marketplace rates steady as a way to force sellers to consider moving their fulfillment operations to FBA.

[mandy]

[quote author=rksmythe link=topic=17780.msg69629#msg69629 date=1209672518]
Mandy,

Actually, I'm not sure that is the case. I think my post may have been confusing.
[/quote]

Oops, I misread your post.  :-[

The consensus on various threads on the Amazon boards is that last  year's increase was an anomaly - no increase is expected this year for Marketplace sellers.

I've been selling on Amazon for over five years.  There have been several postage increases in that time--and, they seem to be happening more and more often.  Last year was the first time that I remember that Amazon increased the cost of shipping to the buyer and passed a little of that increase on to the seller.  Buyers went from paying $3.49 to $3.99 for standard shipping for a book.

I think it will be a l-o-o-o-ng time before Amazon increases the buyer's shipping costs and/or gives us an increased allowance.

http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=152489&start=0&tstart=0
http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=1772302�

The likelihood of Amazon increasing shipping allowances is slim because other media venues like Half and Alibris haven't announced any relief for sellers.  On Monday April 28th new fees went into effect at Abebooks that will result in sellers paying more to ship their items (fee increase announcement, blog post with letter from the IOBA protesting the increases )