Selling on Amazon is getting more expensive — at least, that’s how Pinch Spice Market co-owner Meaghan Thomas feels.
Thomas and her partner Thomas McGee, who started a direct-to-consumer retailer of organic spices in 2012, say selling on Amazon helped them reach things they couldn’t otherwise just use their website customer of.
But after Amazon added a 5% “fuel and inflation” surcharge in April, and announced on Tuesday, it will Thomas was tired of charging sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) an extra 35 cents per item sold during the holiday season.
“We’ve actually grown our business out of our own pocket for 10 years and it’s been growing and we’re doing great, but these hits are absolutely frustrating us, “Thomas told the entrepreneur.
“I think a lot of us, small and medium sellers, are just fed up with this, but what do we do,” she added.
Amazon t old sellers said in an email Tuesday that from Oct. 15 to Jan. 14, it will charge third-party sellers using FBA an additional $35, according to CNBC. divided product cost. This will depend on weight, size and category, the outlet added.
With FBA, Amazon ships your products for you, but it’s nearly impossible to become an Amazon Prime seller — that’s for Eli Coen, CEO of Lero, an Amazon consulting firm that helps sellers, without using FBA.
This is the first time Amazon has done so, but for UPS and FedEx will increase the holiday surcharge, according to NBC Finance, and the USPS also asked for it last week.
“Everyone is crazy,” Cohen said, referring to his Facebook group of sellers.
Worst of all, he said, according to the email he received from Amazon announcing the change, the policy will be implemented every holiday, with screenshots from Entrepreneur . (He also sells on Amazon.)
“We have decided, similar to other carriers, that we will implement peak holiday shipping fees for a certain time of year,” the email said. Based on
his advice to businesses: “I think the best advice is to raise prices as much as possible,” he said.
The holidays are one of the busiest for Amazon and are known as “peak.” During another busy season, Amazon Prime Day, a warehouse worker in New Jersey died, and the Guardian reported that the injury rate at the warehouse was high and that workers felt the conditions were stressful and unsafe.
Amazon said it added surcharges to emails because “fees reached new heights,” according to CNBC.
“Our selling partners are very important to us and this was not a decision we took lightly,” Amazon reportedly added in the email.
Thomas estimates that this 35-cent surcharge will assume one product this year, based on sales from October to January 2021 of one of their middle sellers, Organic Spice Blend Ras El Hanout sales were the same as last year, and they cost about $18,725 more than last year.
Thomas added that she’s been trying to get her business off Amazon for years, which she said was on-the-job; two years ago, she said, it was 41% of their sales, while this year , the proportion is 32%. She writes recipes online, shares them on social media, works with the site’s SEO, and is constantly trying to improve products to increase organic traffic.
But she does not intend to pass the price on to consumers, arguing that, as some critics say, companies raise prices is fueling inflation, according to USA TODAY. Analysts estimate this will add millions to Amazon’s revenue, according to Barron’s.
“We think people are hitting companies too hard to raise prices and we don’t want to be part of the problem,” she said.
“I think we’re focusing now on corporate greed rather than inflation,” she added. “This looks really immoral.”
