Amazon has an amazing network of warehouses and logistics services at its disposal. Whether that’s 7 days a week delivery services or massive fulfilment centres (FCs), even airports, planes and freight ships, Amazon is good at delivering the goods. And they offer you their services in the guise of Fulfilment by Amazon (Amazon FBA).
The price depends on the goods and level of service you choose but the concept is simple. You send your stock to an Amazon FC where they hold and fulfil it for you as if it was their own.
What fees apply to Amazon FBA?
One one level it’s a simple system. There are two basic fees payable for Amazon FBA. There’s the Fulfilment Fee. That’s a flat fee per unit, based on the product type, dimension and outbound shipping weight. The outbound shipping weight is based on your unit’s weight and our packaging weight. And then there is a Storage Fee which is charged per cubic metre or cubic foot per month.
Obviously, when it comes to the fulfilment fee, there is a full scale of charges. Storage is charged at £0.65 per cubic foot per month except for between October – December when demand increases and they charge £0.91.
For the full schedule of Amazon FBA fees (as applied on Amazon.co.uk), you can visit the rate card here. It’s a PDF download so it’s downloadable too.
How to calculate your Amazon FBA fees
Amazon has provided a tool that helps you assess and calculate what FBA fees your goods will attract. You can find that tool here.
Optional services
There are also extra fees chargeable for optional services, should you use them. These include fees for removal or disposal of inventory. They also charge extra if you opt for a label service, bagging, bubble wrap, taping or
opaque bagging.
Long term storage
Twice a year Amazon, quite literally, takes stock and conducts an inventory check in the fulfilment centres (FC). On 15 February and 15 August of every year, inventory items that have been in fulfilment centres for more than 6 months will be assessed a long-term storage fee. The fee is in addition to the regular Inventory Storage Fee and will not be charged if a request has been made to remove or dispose of the units prior to the fee being charged.
Small and Light
Amazon FBA isn’t always cost effective when it comes to storing and fulfilling low cost items. But considering that many of these items are either small or light it’s worth remembering that there are different (lower) fees for small and light items that are more competitive. These fees are addressed in the rate card linked above. For your goods to be eligible they must weigh less than 250g (and that includes the packaging), have dimensions of less than 30 x 22.4 x 2.4 cm and be priced under £9.
Damaged or lost inventory
One way of ensuring that you keep you Amazon FBA fees to a minimum is making sure that you claim your refunds for lost and damaged stock. It’s inevitable in any warehouse that there will be losses, and damage will occur to stock held. And when you send your stock to an Amazon fulfilment centre (FC) as part of FBA, there’s every chance of a problem. Amazon clearly does take care of your stock. But the scale of the operation is huge. To get a refund you need to proactively run a report in Seller Central and put in a claim. Amazon doesn’t do it automatically.
And don’t forget your costs
These costs are just those that you pay to Amazon. When you engage with Amazon FBA don’t forget that you will also be incurring fees to send your consignments to the FC.
You can read all about how to calculate your other Amazon fees in this post: How to calculate your Amazon merchant fees.
One Response
Yous say about Damaged or lost inventory “To get a refund you need to proactively run a report in Seller Central and put in a claim. Amazon doesn’t do it automatically.”
I understood that these were paid to me automatically – how do I run a report in Seller Central and put in a claim????