Amazon Seller Fees - Are They High-Volume Sellers' nightmare Or A Blessing?

 

Amazon charges you three different fees for the various services they offer on their website. The three categories of Amazon seller fees you can pay when you sell items on Amazon are: Personal referrer fees, Affiliate commission fees, and International seller fees. The amount you pay in Amazon seller fees depends on the type of sale that you make on their site. The following descriptions explain each fee category. Be aware that some fees apply to some products while others apply to all products.

The Personal referrer fee is one that you receive from selling one or more items on Amazon as a professional seller. The payment you receive here is equal to fifteen percent of the price of each item you sell. If you do not have an affiliate account, you will need to sign up for one before you can qualify for this fee category.

Amazon seller fees vary by country. In other words, the prices you pay for Amazon's international services will be far lower than those you pay for domestic services. Some sellers will take this into consideration when determining the price of an order. However, it should be noted that this fee applies only to orders made outside the United States. For most other orders, the seller plan charges the standard rate.

Amazon offers two types of fees for individual sellers. Personal seller accounts start at two dollars per month and increase by fifty dollars each month until you reach six dollars per month. This type of Amazon seller account is good for one product. If you have more than one product, you can consolidate your personal seller accounts under one plan and then start charging six dollars per month for all the products you have sold under the same plan.

The second type of Amazon seller account is the Professional seller account. This plan allows you to sell multiple products for more than one dollar per item. If you already have six or more individual seller account, you can combine them into a single professional account for an additional six dollars per month. Amazon provides support for these accounts, including order fulfillment and customer service. Professional seller account fees are also usually higher than personal fees.

FBA Fees. If you are selling on Amazon through a third party, you must pay Amazon for their services. The cost of using Amazon's fulfillment and customer service may deter some sellers from using their services, but they need to consider the cost of employing Amazon's employees to deliver the products they sell. In addition, Amazon has established minimum FBA fees for their vendors. The fees are significantly higher than the fees charged by wholesalers.

If you decide to sell on Amazon without a fba, you will need to determine the total cost of fulfilling your customers' orders before you calculate your e-commerce costs. Most sellers use their own fulfillment companies. Some use fulfillment companies that are members of Amazon Digital Services (ASD). Fulfillment companies that are members of the Amazon Network can reduce your shipping costs, but the cost of hiring additional staff to manage the warehouses that ship your items may be unaffordable.

In all, the fees you pay to Amazon for the services offered may be high-volume sellers' nightmare. Yet many e-commerce entrepreneurs ignore them and only focus on the low-volume items they sell. While you can take advantage of some of the free resources on the Internet, you should not rely on them entirely. Instead, you should invest in a high-volume seller account that will allow you to easily and quickly process payments and fulfill orders. Such a service will dramatically reduce your e-business expenses.