Amazon Fees are getting out of hand
Hi all, hope every one is well.
Quick question, we do circa 10k revenue monthly on Amazon, everything going fine etc but have noticed recently over the last few months that the fees are getting bigger and bigger.
For reference, we do around 10k monthly sales. When I look at the ‘payment disbursement’ section we can see e.g. we have done 3k sales this week but Amazon are taking a large chunk out of this… more than 35%. Can anyone shed some light as to why? I thought fees were around 15+% depending on what category you sell in?
Rather perplexed, if this continues can see us shutting down the Amazon side and just continuing our eBay/own website instead as the fees don’t stack up to us.
Harry
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
The easiest way to check quickly, is to go to the payments reports.
Then choose an item and take a look at the breakdown of the fees.
It does sound very much like your not taking into account FBA fees.
If so and your comparing it to sales on other sites, then you need to figure this in, against the postage that your paying elsewhere.
81 replies
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
FBA fees? Storage fees?
You need to break down your costs.
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
VAT is one cost that sellers seem to forget. Other than that and the ones previously mentioned ad costs can stack up quickly. It’s also possible items with FBA have been measured incorrectly, so worth checking to make sure the FBA fees are correct.
Based on your comment re the referral fee though, it may well just be you haven’t taken into account the FBA fees.
Seller_WseB32EBb785w
Fees may be high, but this insatiable creature isn’t going to start reducing them. For a fact they’ll go further north. Watch your storage fees too, they more than double Q3 through Q4.
Seller_DnL3AXoQFgZKI
Lots of Amazon Sellers aim for the 1/3 rule
1/3 goes to Amazon in Fees
1/3 goes to buying the product
1/3 goes to you (but in reality to get less than that as you have to also factor in all your other costs such as internet, fuel, accountants, software, NI, taxes etc etc etc)
So to get anywhere you have to source products that you can sell for at least 3 times their cost price
Seller_0k4MC7yVypqMp
is the amount of money i get back from a sale - the amount after you click taxes on the inventory?
Seller_FEO0des6cjAyK
hi, if you use fba the costs will increase, have you thought about next day shipping by customer and shipping yourself ?, your courier company should provide you with a zebra printer and lables this will reduce your overheads . i have a mon - fri collection contract 24hour delivery uk mainland and no printer cartridge or paper costs.
John
Seller_qYWBbVqeAGVy5
It’s funny how people completely disregard shipping & packing when they think about Amazon fees in relation to using FBA
If you had your own website where you fulfilled your stock and you shipped out £10 items sent as Royal Mail 24 Parcels, then that’s already costing you 30% or more of your turnover, before you even consider packing material and the time/labour to pack and label
Seller_lljyzgTxr5fgI
If you look at Ebay, you won’t find that much of a difference, TBH. Since the introduction of managed payments, fees can vary wildly from one seller to another. We do everything FBA and work on the basis of we will get around 50% of any sale fee (after all costs). It might be a tad better than that, up to 60% but it’s never worse than 50%. That works out fine for doing no work other than labelling and sending to Amazon.
Seller_24Bec1n3QCVmi
We use FBA and our total fees (including FBA fees) are around 40%, however, we do the odd Amazon Ads and that obviously comes as an additional fee. We base our calculations on receiving 50% of the sale price. If that 50% gives us profit after our running costs and vat, we are happy.
We find that the FBA fees are a fair bit cheaper than paying Royal Mail or any other courier UNLESS a customer orders multiple items. If a customer orders 60 items (which has happened in the past), we would pay 60 x £2.50 FBA fee, whereas if we sent that order by next day courier, it would cost us £10 max.
Seller_4MlYJvoHfdkDh
People saying its 35/40 of turnover.
This all depends on the value of the products you are selling, when you consider the value of the shipping cost compared to the value of the item.