Coming this week, there will be changes to Amazon EU FBA fees. They come into force on the 26th of April. The changes will apply to items stored in the five dedicated country specific marketplaces (UK, France, Italy, Spain, France and Germany) and also fulfilment centres in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Here Amazon explains the major changes:
- Change to Local Fulfilment Fees: We will adjust our fulfilment fees for products sold on Amazon marketplaces and shipped from a fulfilment centre in the same Amazon marketplace. Units fulfilled as part of the Pan-European programme will continue to be charged the local fulfilment fee from the marketplace in which the product was purchased.
- Change to European Fulfilment Network (EFN) Fees: We will adjust our cross-border EFN fulfilment fees for products sold on Amazon marketplaces and shipped across European borders from a fulfilment centre in another Amazon marketplace in Europe.
- Change to Monthly Storage Fees: Monthly storage fees will be increased for inventory stored in European fulfilment centres.
- Elimination of Zero Fee Fulfilment: The Zero Fee Fulfilment discount for standard-size items that sell for £300/€350 or more will be discontinued. Fulfilment fees based on the product size tier will apply.
There is a lot to digest and read, and the full information can be found on this Amazon page.
Changes to Amazon EU FBA monthly storage fees
From April 26, 2018, the inventory storage fee for items stored in United Kingdom fulfilment centres will be £0.65 per cubic foot between January and September and £0.91 per cubic foot between October and December to account of seasonality.
And looking to other European countries, from the same date the inventory storage fee for items stored in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Czech Republic fulfilment centres will be €26 per cubic metre between January and September and €36 per cubic metre between October and December.
Amazon EU FBA changes coming later in the year
More developments will be coming later in the year:
There will be an expansion of Returns Processing Fee into Jewellery, Watches and Luggage Categories from September.
And October will see the introduction of Manual Processing Fee: Amazon will require merchants to provide box content information for each box sent to Amazon. Sellers who don’t provide box content information will be subject to Manual Processing Fee for each unit.
Don’t forget that there is also the handy Amazon FBA Revenue calculator available to help you assess what you will pay. (Although at least until the 26th April, this will likely operate on the old fees.)
In the FAQs at the end of that (very long page), they explain some of the rationale behind the changes:
Why is FBA changing its fees?
FBA remains committed to providing the high-quality service and fast, free shipping expected by Amazon customers. To maintain this level of service, we periodically assess FBA fees and may consider adjusting our rates to reflect the changing costs of storage, fulfilment, transportation and customer service. When we need to increase fees, we announce these changes in advance to help give you enough time to make business decisions.
– Amazon
Amazon FBA is a fantastic service for the right sellers with products suited to the fulfilment service but it is also relatively expensive. How ill you be affected by these changes and will you be using Amazon EU FBA more or less than you do currently?
2 Responses
Very hard to be based in the UK and sell at margin on amazon, Many many sellers. Even if you are well priced you are 1 of 1000s of listings for the same item at times. We have moved alot of stock away from FBA for this reason, we are storing for a long time with hardly any sales. Only fast moving stock are suited for FBA.
@ifellow agree with you, we bit the bullet with FBA. We had to price up 40% on our UK prices for the EU markets. Sales are not the issue it is the margin. The final nail in the head was we were getting returns ( 2 months later) of new release games that had clearly been USED and in some cases misused, it was all just to costly.
We used FBA for a few years, but it was not making any money in the end. They put a fee rise on media also in August. If you look at 3rd party sellers in our sector it is actually now pretty expensive, compared to the rest of the market.
Kinda do not know what to do with Amazon right now, it has i t has it’s uses but it is all one way traffic right now in Amazon’s favour.
Right now we are doing well without it, but things change so quick.