Amazon is tacking on a new five percent surcharge for US sellers who use their fulfillment services in order to cover rising fuel costs and inflation.
The online retail giant informed sellers about the new fees in a memo on Wednesday and said that they will go into effect on April 28.
Amazon made sure to be clear that the surcharge is “on top of our current Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) fulfillment fee per unit rates.”
Fulfillment by Amazon is a service where the company stores, packs and ships items to customers on behalf of individual sellers. Those who sell on Amazon, but do not use this service, will not be impacted.
The company claimed that they have been absorbing the cost increases wherever possible in an effort to help reduce the impact of inflation on independent merchants.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Amazon said that they have made "big investments" during the pandemic, including doubling capacity, hiring 750,000 new employees, and raising warehouse employee wages from $15 to $18 per hour.
“Like many, we have experienced significant cost increases and absorbed them, wherever possible, to reduce the impact on our selling partners,” Amazon said in the memo to US sellers. “In 2022, we expected a return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the world eased, but fuel and inflation have presented further challenges. It is still unclear if these inflationary costs will go up or down, or for how long they will persist.”
Amazon informed their merchants that the surcharge is still lower than what they would pay for similar services from companies like FedEx and UPS.
Other companies have also added fuel and inflation surcharges, including Lyft and Uber.
"Amazon's fee hikes on sellers could translate to higher costs to consumers as businesses seek to pass along rising expenses to their customers," WXII reports.
The report noted that, "suppliers sharply raised prices by 11.2% in March, the most on records that go back to 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. Consumer prices spiked by 8.5% year-over-year in March, the biggest jump since 1981."
